La Gazza Ladra, Rossini's Tuneful Bird

It is, I think, fitting that Saturday Afternoon at the Opera follow the weighty, doom-filled and relentlessly serious Tristan of Wagner with Rossini's tuneful bird, La Gazza Ladra.

From the opening notes of it's immensely popular overture and screaming snare drum, used in film, television, elevators and cartoons as well as the great concert halls and opera houses where we enter a wildly slapstick mixture of mock militarism, comic lightness and parody of dire fate - all wrapped in a gossamer elegance. While Tristan "appears" to be about eveything and is finally about music, La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie) pretends to be about nothing, but like the Wagner, it is finally a great feast of the voice and examination of human foibles from the comic as opposed to the tragic angle. For lovers of the voice, it is an Olympics of Vocalization requiring at least six outstanding singers and four "rock steady" principals. They never get a break. It is said that Rossini altered the work into later life, not changing the plot but endlessly elaborating ornament and vocal demands as he encountered great singers. It is almost as long as Tristan and packed into two unrelenting acts that must keep us laughing for almost three and a quarter hours!  

The plot is conjured out of thin air and is apparently based on a French play that ends in tragedy. In Rossini's "semi-seria" concoction the darkness always threatens, but then is scattered by light and laughter. In a provincial household of an upper middle class couple the serving maid and the son of the house are about to be married in spite of the mothers furious objections. The hen pecked father can't see the problem and does not believe that she is responsible for some mysteriously missing family valuables. Simultaneously as the two couple struggle, our maid, Ninetta and her beloved Giannetto combat the parents, Fabrizio and Lucia. Then add to this a lustful politician pursuing our maid and her father fleeing the army. He, Fernando, has had an argument with his Captain. Ninetta's being charged with theft and the father desertion and both are under penalty of death and that's just Act I :

                                         Veni fra queste braccia

                                               mi balza il cor nel sen!

                                                Come to my arms...

                                               my heart is pounding in my breast!

                                          This my dear is the language of true love.

For this true love she will risk prosecution by the spurned politician, Il Podesta (Sam Ramey) and the threat of the firing squad. As part of the narrative rushes toward what looks like a catastrophe for father, daughter and her lover a most mysterious and unlikely culprit is uncovered who might extricate them all ...

Please tune in to this Saturday Afternoon at the Opera at noon for Rossini's comic masterpiece , La Gazza Ladra, here on KPAC and KTXI.

by Ron Moore

Seldom called Lyric

Anton Bruckner, this work is in
the public domain in the United States 

Bruckner's Seventh Symphony quotes previous music written by the composer, although he said he heard it in a dream played on viola, awoke and wrote down the melody. Adolf Hitler loved the slow movement of the symphony and made a bust of the composer in 1937. On the next Classical Spotlight, we'll talk with conductor Sebastian Lang-Lessing about the Seventh Symphony of Bruckner, sometimes referred to as the Lyric, Thursday afternoon at one o'clock on KPAC and KTXI.


-host John Clare

Kicking Back

San Antonio is good at summer, probably because we get so much practice. While in Northern climes the season of spring is so anticipated that the concept of getting warmer is celebrated in word and music. San Antonio located closer to the equator than Cairo, Egypt and sometimes we get our warm weather as early as February. Our summers are long and hot and that's what is celebrated on the Piano this Sunday with a program entitled "Summertime". From impressions of the hot season in Prague to the sweltering Gardens of Spain, music that warms ones bones portrayed with 88 keys. Get your favorite cool beverage and kick back with the Piano.

The Piano heard Sunday's at 5 pm on KPAC and KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

Tristan, Love & Revolution

Before there was love there was revolution.The eleven years that passed in the composition of Tristan und Islode from idea and early sketch to premiere (1854-1865) are marked by several notable events. First is the failure of the European revolutions of 1848. It is this upheaval that leads to Wagner's revolutionary agitation and flight because of a warrant for his arrest and subsequent geographical displacements and exile. It is this series of events that takes him to the door of Otto and Mathilde Wesendonk. Otto is a wealthy silk merchant and he and his wife ardent devotees of Wagner's music. She is also a poet and in an unusual gesture Wagner puts to music words that are not his own. Themes for what will be major melodic ideas of Tristan appear in two of the five song cycle, Traume (Dreams) and Im Treibhaus (In the Conservatory), later named "Tristan Studies" or Wesendonck Lieder.


It has never been clear if what passed between Mathilde and Richard was infatuation, platonic/ symbolic emotional upheaval, a "love affair" in the full meaning of that term or the collision of two romantic dreamers (common in the nineteenth century) whose "child " was the emotionally extravagant and musically revolutionary Tristan. It is also interesting to note that the work was not written while in a long congress and adoration of the beloved, Frau Wesendock. Minna, Wagner's first wife, intercepted a letter which led to the confrontation of all four parties. Much like the end of Act II of the opera after the great love duet and ravishing night music:

                                                                   O sink hernieder ,

                                                                    Nacht der Liebe,

                                                                       Descend,

                                                                 O Night of love,

                                                                    grant oblivion

                                                                    that I may live;

                                                                      take me up

                                                                  into your bosom

                                                                  release me from

                                                                      the world ! 

At the end of Act II of Tristan the lovers are "interrupted" before the great duet can conclude in resolving unison. Similarly whatever happened between Wagner and Frau Wesendonck was also " abruptly " intruded upon by the respective husband and wife and as in the opera they are separated. Otto takes Mathilde to Italy and Wagner also wanders (without Minna) to Venice and Lucerne with his score. It will be published in three separate sections so anxious is his publisher to get the music before the public.

The plot of the vast (about three and three-quarter hours) score is marked by the combined characteristics of encounter, conflict and sudden infatuation (with the help of a love potion) in the first act. Act II is a long uninterrupted movement of unbridled, tempestuous feeling in spite of the great danger of discovery.  Act III, as in the life of the real Mathilde and Richard, is marked by melancholy, regret, separation and wandering. The work of art as usual succeeding where life failed - Tristan and Isolde are reunited under " the black flag" symbolizing reunion and death (I think ...) .He dies in expectation of seeing her again, she dies of the euphoria of their last meeting. Wagner called it not Isolde's Death but her " Transfiguration " . 

  

By way of personal confession. Tristan (this performance) was the first Wagner opera I ever bought as a teenager. I will never forget handing the record store salesman the lordly sum of $20 and being given a nickel back ! A horrible portent of a lifetime of buying to come. I have listen to almost all available (major) recordings ranging over almost three quarters of a century, dating from the thirties to our time. I have seen it performed and confess only this week to making some sense of Act III. All the talk of Schopenhauer, the love - death, transcendence, transfiguration, mystical union etc... aside, I never drank the Kool-Aide. There was something about all this disembodied talk about love that I just couldn't accept. But I have a theory and it takes us back to the failed revolution and the bitter life of exile that would follow for Wagner. I suspect that what he and we are really saying "farewell" to is not a woman or love, they are the symbols and emotional catalyst for this truly great musical utterance. It is through the eyes of lovers that we now have the long forestalled reaction to the political failure that was to transform the world. Wagner didn't just want to write great music (he did), or have a great love, he did in the form of Franz Liszt's daughter, Cosima. What never happened was the creation of a world, remade through a politics of utopian values; beyond class with the artist at its center. All that was left was flight into the "infinite private life" and the oblivion and endlessness of the "Tristan Chord".  

Tune in to this Saturday Afternoon at the Opera for what Wagner called his monument to life's greatest dream, Tristan, at noon, here on KPAC and KTXI.

by Ron Moore

Join CCSA

You too can add your child's voice to the many at the Children's Chorus of San Antonio - they have added more placement times.

CCSA performing, courtesy of CCSA and used by permission.

Placements for the 2012-2013 season with CCSA will be held now through June 4th. Their mission is to bring quality choral music education and performance opportunities to youth; singers represent a all walks of San Antonio's rich culture.
Boys and girls ages 7-18 rehearse weekly during the academic year in one of seven training and performance ensembles in four locations. Singers learn musicianship and vocal technique, and develop life-long skills that including confidence, poise, self-esteem and discipline. Visit childrenschorussa.org for additional information and to register.
CCSA is completing its 29th season and continues to provide amazing experiences in choral music education and performance to over 400 children and youth annually. Season highlights included an appearance with San Antonio Symphony for Liszt: Dante Symphony last March, and a new weekly program for families and children at Haven for Hope.
(compiled and edited via email and press releases)

C-C-Changes in SA Symphony program

Guest conductor Alondra de la Parra was scheduled to lead the San Antonio Symphony this weekend. She has canceled due to illness. They have engaged Cristian Macelaru to replace her as the guest conductor. The Copland Symphony No. 3 and Khachaturian's Violin Concerto with soloist Mikhail Simonyan will still be performed, as previously scheduled. The first work on the program will be changed to Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila.
Cristian Macelaru has established an exciting and highly regarded presence through his thoughtful interpretations, poise and energetic conviction on the podium. He began his work with the Philadelphia Orchestra in the 2010-11 season and, with the orchestra’s vote in September 2011, was named Assistant Conductor, effective 2011-12. Recently, Mr. Macelaru received the 2012 Sir George Solti Emerging Conductor Award, a prestigious honor only awarded once before in the foundation’s history. In February 2012, Mr. Macelaru made his Chicago Symphony subscription debut as a replacement for Pierre Boulez with overwhelming success and rave reviews. Other 2011-12 season highlights include engagements with the Baltimore and Houston Symphony Orchestras and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, in addition to conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra and assisting Music Director Designate Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Chief Conductor Charles Dutoit. Mr. Macelaru’s 2012-13 season brings highly anticipated debuts with Montréal’s Orchestre Métropolitain, the Windsor Symphony and the Naples Philharmonic, as well as a return to the Baltimore Symphony.
An accomplished violinist from an early age, Mr. Macelaru was the youngest concertmaster in the history of the Miami Symphony Orchestra and made his Carnegie Hall debut with that orchestra at the age of nineteen. He also played in the first violin section of the Houston Symphony for two seasons. Formerly, he held the position of Resident Conductor at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, where he was Music Director of the Campanile Orchestra, Assistant Conductor to Larry Rachleff and Conductor for the Opera Department. A proponent of music education, Mr. Macelaru has served as a conductor with the Houston Youth Symphony, where he also conceptualized and created a successful chamber music program.
Mr. Macelaru has participated in the prestigious conducting programs of the Tanglewood Music Center and the Aspen Music Festival, studying under David Zinman, Murry Sidlin, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Robert Spano, Oliver Knussen and Stefan Asbury. His main studies were with renowned teacher Larry Rachleff at Rice University, where he received his Master of Music degree in conducting. He completed undergraduate studies at the University of Miami.

Complete 30

In August 2010, HJ performed the complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas over eight consecutive days in Paris and one year later she recorded the complete cycle for EMI Classics with whom she now records exclusively. Tomorrow EMI Classics releases HJ Lim's outstanding collection of Beethoven Piano Sonatas on iTunes. Hear her discuss recording the monumental works, the relationship of symphonies to sonatas and deciding not to include two of the sonatas with host John Clare:


For a limited time, these 99 tracks will be available for $9.99. It is a bargain and great aural pleasure!
Here is a sample of HJ playing the "Moonlight" Sonata:

As San Antonio audiences just heard these works live throughout January and February, you'll love revisiting these masterworks with this 19 year old pianist.

ASCAP honors composers

The 13th annual ASCAP Concert Music Awards will take place on Thursday, May 24, 2012 at Merkin Concert Hall at the Kaufman Center in New York City. ASCAP member, composer, musician, and author Peter Schickele will host the invitation-only event, which will recognize the achievements of ASCAP’s 2012 Concert Music Honorees who represent the diverse aesthetic spectrum of the concert music world. Among the evening's presenters will be Eve Beglarian, David Del Tredici, Joan La Barbara, Paul Lansky, Terrance McKnight, Paul Moravec, Tamar Muskal, Stephen Paulus, Melinda Wagner, Doug Wood, Randall Woolf, and ASCAP’s Paul Williams, Frances Richard, Michael Spudic, and Cia Toscanini.
The 2012 Honorees are:
ASCAP presents the Aaron Copland Award to distinguished ASCAP member, George Walker, in celebration of his 90th year and for his contribution to American music as a composer, pianist, educator, and exemplary musical citizen.

ASCAP presents the Victor Herbert Award to ASCAP member, Jim Staley, Co-Founder and President of Roulette, for more than 30 extraordinary years of presenting, commissioning, recording, and broadcasting innovative composers, musicians, sound and collaborative artists.

ASCAP celebrates Bridge Records (Becky Starobin (ASCAP member), President; David Starobin (ASCAP member), Director of Artists & Repertoire; Robert Starobin, Vice President; and Allegra R. Starobin, Associate Director) for their 30-year commitment to musical excellence and distinguished service to American music.

 ASCAP salutes Maestro Delta David Gier, Music Director of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, a champion of American composers, and a courageous advocate for the music of our time. 

ASCAP presents the John Cage Award to Kathleen Supové, for the artistry and passion with which she performs, commissions, records, and champions the music of our time.

The ASCAP Foundation program honors the late Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and former ASCAP Foundation President Morton Gould’s lifelong commitment to encouraging young creators. The award-winning composers share prizes of approximately $42,000, including the Leo Kaplan Award, in memory of the distinguished attorney who served as ASCAP Special Distribution Advisor; the Charlotte V. Bergen Scholarship for a composer 18 years of age or younger; and a grant from The ASCAP Foundation Jack and Amy Norworth Fund. Jack Norworth generously dedicated the royalties from his great standards, "Shine On Harvest Moon" and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" to benefit gifted, emerging composers. Award recipients receive complimentary copies of Sibelius notation software, generously donated by Avid, the company that creates technology used to make the most listened to, most watched and most loved music and media in the world. In addition, the award recipients are offered a free one year subscription to ScoreStreet, providing self-publishing composers business expertise and the ability to effectively promote their profiles and works through a searchable website. ScoreStreet will launch this summer.
 The 2012 Morton Gould Young Composer Award recipients are listed with their current residence, and place of origin: David Biedenbender of Ann Arbor, MI (Waukesha, WI); William David Cooper of Davis, CA (Rocky Mount, CA); Derek David of Boston, MA (Los Angeles, CA); Simon Frisch of New York, NY; Michael Gilbertson of New Haven, CT (Dubuque, IA); Ted Goldman of Rochester, NY (New York, NY); Peng-Peng Gong of New York, NY (Nanjing, China); Ross Griffey of Seabrook, TX (Nassau Bay, TX); Ted Hearne of Brooklyn, NY (Chicago, IL); David Hertzberg of New York, NY (Santa Monica, CA); Andrew Hsu of Philadelphia, PA (Fremont, CA); Emily Koh Waltham, MA (Singapore); Michael Lee of New York, NY (Atlanta, GA); Maxwell J. McKee of Annandale-on-Hudson, NY (Montclair, NJ); Jared Abraham Miller of New York, NY (Los Angeles, CA); Eric Nathan of New York, NY; Gity H. Razaz of New York, NY (Tehran, Iran); Kathryn Salfelder of Fairlawn, NJ (Paterson, NJ); Nathan Shields of Poughkeepsie, NY (Traverse City, MI); Mike Sweeney of Bloomington, IN (Albert Lea, MN); and Roger Zare of Ann Arbor, MI (Sarasota, FL).
The following composers received Honorable Mention: Anthony R. Green of Boulder, CO (Arlington, VA); Ian Ng of Long Island City, NY (Hong Kong, China); Michael Schachter of Ann Arbor, MI (Boston, MA); Matt Smith of Cleveland, OH (San Diego, CA); Francisco Castillo Trigueros of Chicago, IL (Mexico City, Mexico); and Clinton J. Wang of New Haven, CT (Toronto, Canada).
 The youngest ASCAP Foundation composer Award recipients range in age from 12 to 18 and are listed by state of residence: Miles Jefferson Friday, age 18 (WA); Tengku Ahmad Irfan age 13 (NY); Anna Larsen, age 12 (MA); Yeeren I. Low, age 15 (PA); John Peter Redmond, age 12 (NY); Thomas Reeves, age 17 (NY); Jonas Tarm, age 18 (IL); and Renata Vallecillo, age 12 (NJ). 
Honorable Mention in the youngest category: Gideon Broshy, age 18 (NY); Emily Elizabeth Brown, age 17 (MD); Thomas Feng, age 18 (CA); Sidarth Jayadev, age 14 (NY); Jake Landau, age 16 (CT); and Yeeray Low, age 17 (PA). The 2012 ASCAP composer/judges were: Samuel Adler, Eve Beglarian, Yotam Haber, Tamar Muskal, Roberto Sierra, Augusta Read Thomas and Randall Woolf.

Is it the Coke or the Coke bottle?

When we music lovers buy something as intangible as music what are we really buying? In the old days it was the sheet music, but Thomas Edison changed all that with the invention of the cylinder recorder/ player in 1877. Suddenly the music lover had a choice - to become a musician to make music or just buy some equipment and save a lot of time.

The Edison cylinder was replaced by the Berliner disc and the sale of 78 rpm "records" exploded. Then technology and free enterprise takes over and crunchy sounding 78's were superseded by the vinyl long playing records and then reel to reel tapes, cassettes and then the world of Flash Gordon and lasers and the peak of technology, the compact disc. But not so fast, now the latest and greatest innovation is the digital download and suddenly music is once again invisible and seemingly intangible - hidden on your hard drive, until it crashes.

Great artists can continue to be great long after their death because of these technologies. Recordings that were enjoyed on 78's were transferred to LP, then cassette and now the waning technology of the compact disc. Walter Gieseking was an infant prodigy and avoided school because at the age of 5 he discovered he could read and write. This gave him more time to study music and he succeeded brilliantly. Recently EMI remastered many of Gieseking's greatest recordings and re-released them for the umpteenth time - but this time with the clean and modern sound we music lovers have come to prefer. Hear the German pianist and his influential performances of the music of Claude Debussy as well as a recent recording of Franz Schubert's monumental G major Sonata on the Piano this Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC and KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

Carmen, Bizet's Dream

It is commonplace to imagine Georges Bizet's Carmen to be part of a long line of seductresses: Salome, Manon, Delilah and most notoriously Lulu. Her goal, apparently is, escape from jail and win her freedom - the price? The seduction of Don Jose. What follows is the inevitable. It is a convenient explanation, especially for Don Jose and for all men who think themselves victims of the wily and duplicitous female who had undermined, betrayed and lied. In short it is subterfuge that drives them and for all of the women above, excepting Carmen, I accept that this is true. Salome is an unsupervised teenager bent on pathological narcissicism (Herod and the court have not a clue where her mania is leading ...). Manon is  naive, but also in search of a protector; Lulu pretends to be a naive as she realizes men desire this and she plays the role to win her desires; Dalilah works for Samson's enemies and is the classic "spy in the house of love". Carmen does none of this and none of these women offer over and over to not only release their victim, but Carmen encourages his realization that he has made a mistake! She promises love and delivers; but she never offered "terms" or a limit to her feelings; that is his presumption  and part of his unspoken dream.  

 

The text of the opera is both brilliant and clear:

 

O ma Carmen, laisse- moi te sauver, toi que j'adore,

 

 

    Oh my Carmen , let me save you,

 

       Oh, Carmen I adore you...

 

Her response (already given to save his pleading and her bother) is devastating  and utterly without equivocation or deceit :

 

            Tu demandes l'impossible !

 

                Carmen jamais n'a menti !

 

                     Entre nous, tout a fini !

 

 

                                              You are asking the impossible !

 

                                                  Carmen has never told you a lie !

 

                                                       All is over between us !

 

 All reponses are in exclamation points. In each act Don Jose, a soldier and a free man, is offered a choice. He may have Carmen, but it will cost him and change his life forever. In act two when she rejects the Toreador, she too is free and for the moment loves Don Jose alone. In act three realizing that for all their efforts and feeling, " this life is not for you " she then encourages him to return home with her rival, Micaela and in the last act she will not turn away from this truth even under the premonition of death as has been read in the cards by the gypsies. What then is it about Carmen that has so entranced him?  It is the thing never said in the opera - Carmen is the "bad girl of good boy's dreams" and mother's nightmares. She is the opportunity to turn his back on Mother, Home, Innocence and Obligation. She is the temptation and reality of another world of Freedom, Moral Trespass, Risk and Sensuality. Don Jose's fatal delusion, typical of a man of his time, is that in the end he will tame and reshape her: after all she is only a woman. It is this failure (the failure of an unspoken dream) that drives him to insanity and finally murder. She will be his or no one's, he can never offer her: "the freedom " that she had over and over offered him. This is the opera's great secret and unconfessed power and about as far from seduction as I think possible. The shattering conclusion is all the more horrific in that it is not only not deserved, but is wholly unnecessary. That Don Jose can neither lead Carmen's life nor return to his past in the end he is too dependent and would rather murder than be free. This is perhaps Bizet's most devastating insight, of a dream gone wrong and perfectly realized as music, the inversion of romantic opera ! Or (to paraphrase) as Nietzsche later wrote to Wagner : "Richard , love is not like Tristan. Love is like Carmen "

 

 

Tune in to Saturday Afternoon at the Opera and hear Don Jose's emotional and one way ride to hell, courtesy of a tempestous woman and Bizet's extraordinary music and drama that gives shape to this unique and colorful creation. That's Bizet's Carmen , this Saturday at noon, on KPAC and KTXI .    

 

By Ron Moore