ENTARTETE MUSIK

Brightening your day

2012-01-30T17:16:00.005Z

There's nothing better than a dose of Iberian sunshine to warm a cold January day. And Garrick Ohlsson's new recording of Granados piano works on Hyperion is guaranteed to pep up your Vitamin D. A florid celebration of the paintings and period of Francesco de Goya, Granados's Goyescas are given joyful performances.

Written over the course of three years, Goyescas is a series of impressionistic responses to Goya's paintings (which Granados had first seen in Madrid in 1896). Imbued with patriotic nostalgia, Ohlsson delivers the terpsichorean flourishes with rhythmic fluidity. And there's muscularity too, especially in the opening of the second book of pieces. Collectively the performance offers dazzling chiaroscuro between burning sun and black shadow.

The highly decorated lines - each finding a voice within often complex textures - are given swagger through spry staccato passages and Ohlsson's keen sense of improvisatory tumble. If occasionally the performance lacks the whispered frisson of Alicia de Laroccha's benchmark recording, texturally this remains a formidable disc and Ohlsson does Goya and Granados's colours proud. Click here to order a copy.

Truth and/or Imagination

2012-01-30T08:37:00.004Z

'There is a crystal of truth in nearly every scene.' So said Peter Shaffer when challenged about the veracity of Amadeus, his florid play and later film about Mozart's life in Vienna. Similarly, Ken Russell's Song of Summer, a 1968 film for television about Delius, starts with truth; what flourishes is a variation on that theme. The Delius film was shown yesterday at QEH as part of the Philharmonia's celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth. It reminded us that imagination is key in telling these extraordinary lives, though people too frequently run scared.

There are many criticism you can level at Russell's films and indeed Amadeus, but I've always admired the bravery of them, for throwing away the text book and getting down and dirty with the mundane drive of a composer. But while Shaffer shows Mozart at the prime of life, cut down in his final year by illness (and a highly Romanticised death), Russell's subject is a blind and paralysed elderly man. Positioning him as the 'other' in Eric Fenby's narrative - Fenby worked with Russell on the screenplay - Delius is a bundle of notes and nerves that needs teasing out.

Although Russell eschews many of the more grotesque excesses that became hallmarks of his artistry, Song of Summer plays tricks with the elision of scenes, bending time and changing our perception of what is real and what is imaginary. The inaccuracies of the film have already been listed by the truth hounds. But by doing so, Russell focuses on the feelings that were central to Fenby's experience of working with Delius during the last years of his life.

Those riffs, those escapes from the dogged 'fact' of the matter, have always troubled people. They skew the reality of the situation, or so contested James Fenton in his review of the original production of Amadeus in the Sunday Times. It's good to know where fact ends, of course, and where imagination begins, but Shaffer's screenplay and Russell's composer films constantly impress upon us that imagination remains key. Otherwise strict documentary will be the only way forward and we, just like the history it tries to interpret, will be lost.

But as soon as we settle upon the idea that documentary is some great factual totem, one of its greatest proponents shoots that absolute truth down in flames. I listened to David Attenborough's wise and wonderful episode of Desert Island Discs recorded for the programme's 70th birthday. Kirsty Young brought up the tricky subject of the polar bear cubs in the recent Frozen Planet. Although an impression had been given that the footage was created in the wild, Attenborough and his team were honest on the show's website (though not on film) that it had been shot in captivity. A barrage of press criticism ensued (though their source for information was, in fact, the website itself). Young suggested the furore was caused by Frozen Planet being a documentary. Attenborough contested the strictness of that generic delineation.

That's a very simplified view of what filmmaking is about. I mean, filmmaking is a very artificial business. You deal with time. You condense time. You condense places. You mix close-ups and long shots. You mix them all together. You don't say this is a news report. And shouldn't hang yourself with the notion that documentary has overtones that it doesn't deserve. So although it's a bit highfalutin to say that it's art, that's actually what you do.

It's a central message to anyone that creates. Lying or posing deliberately false impressions is, of course, deceiving, but Russell's glorious distillation of Eric Fenby's time with Delius is hardly a fictional tale run riot. Last night, as it did in the 60s, it provided an inventive gateway to Delius's musical world. Like any good filmmaker, playwright or storyteller, Russell doesn't let fact get in the way of telling a good story. But like Shaffer and Attenborough, his endeavour is always anchored to that 'crystal of truth'. Sadly the BFI DVDs of Russell's films are not currently available; I hope that his recent death provokes a reissuing of all of his work.

New events on Der Zauberberg

2012-01-29T10:25:00.000Z

It's all very confusing. Rather than just sitting back, enjoying 'the cure' and listening to Aida and Winterreise, the residents at the Berghof in Davos seem to be going, well, a little off-piste in their conversations over dinner. It's even more surprising that the ruminations of Ludovico Settembrini are commanding such a huge amount of air-time and column inches. Business Week tells us that "Davos leaders urge Europe to fix crisis hurting growth‎." Surely, growth is part of the cure and rest programme at the Berghof? The BBC's "Alternative voices on how to fix the world economy‎" is less confusing, though equally surprising. Perhaps Hans has been allowed to express his opinion for once, without Joachim shouting him down. And there are clearly new characters arriving at the Sanatorium. I knew about the Russians, the Germans and Italians, all mentioned by Hans. But Greeks? The Independent warns of a "Deadlock in Davos as pressure on Greece rises." Deadlock has aways been the name of the game in Der Zauberberg but it's terrific to see the media finally giving its attention to this seminal European novel. I just hope I haven't been missing the point...

800 years of the Thomanerchor

2012-01-27T16:10:00.000Z

Founded in 1212, this year marks the 800th anniversary of the founding of Leipzig's Thomanerchor. The bedrock of music making in the Saxon city, pre-dating the great Gewandhausorchester by nearly 570 years, this all-boys choir is rightly famed throughout the world. Although it had already been active as a choir for 500 years, it was the directorship of J.S. Bach that cemented the choir's position within musical history. Premiering many of his greatest works, counterpoint runs through the choir's blood stream. While the majority of British cathedrals cease training their trebles once voices break, the Thomanerchor retains older boys to sing the alto, tenor and bass lines. It is therefore not only a choir but also offers a complete education through the Thomasschule zu Leipzig (also founded in 1212).

It was extraordinary to hear the boys performing the Matthew Passion at the Barbican a few year's ago (now available on disc). 16-year-old tenors breezed through exposed lines with effortless musicality. And hearing them perform at Motette on a Saturday afternoon is comparable only with the first time you step foot inside King's College Chapel in Cambridge. To celebrate 800 years of extraordinary music making, Paul Smaczny and Günter Atteln have created a documentary about the boys' lives. Following the choir for a year, Die Thomaner, produced by Accentus and released in Germany on 16 February, is a fantastic testament to this singular ensemble in Western music. Click here for more information.

Gilded Korngold

2012-01-27T13:52:00.004Z

The Doric Quartet and pianist Kathryn Stott launch into Korngold's Piano Quintet with terrific sweep. Unapologetic for the lush displays of heart and heft, this a disc with real abandon. Sweet but never saccharine, pleading though never over-stating its case, the Doric Quartet and their guests explore these works with a full understanding of this beguiling sound world.

After the swagger of the opening, Stott picks out the Quintet's second subject with 'silver rose' delicacy. But something more nefarious lurks in the distance and the players give this work's growling underbelly a brilliantly black sound. Although the central variations lack some breath and space, the finale has suitably uncaged violence. Korngold demands real muscle and emotion in this piece and the musicians oblige with a thrilling performance.

Joined by Jennifer Stumm on viola and cellist Bartholomew LaFollette, the players concoct a Brahmsian tenor for the String Sextet. While the work lacks the natural percussive drive of the piano, the sextet more than compensates with real spring in its collective step. But it's the charm and ease of the melodies that wins out. Korngold requires total sincerity in each and every bar. This disc is an object lesson in how to perform his music. Click here to order a copy.

Hearing Elgar's Faith

2012-01-25T10:41:00.000Z

I always said God was against art and I still believe it. Anything obscene or trivial is blessed in this world and has a reward – I ask for no reward – only to live and to hear my work.

Disconsolate after the dismal premiere of The Dream of Gerontius, Elgar was frustrated by the world and the Catholic faith he had followed from the cradle. Over the rest of his life he slowly withdrew from the church, failing to turn up for Mass and initially refusing to see a Priest on his death bed. This picture of belligerent doubter is far from the incensed faith that runs through the second part of The Dream. But what is so rich about that work is the air of terror and hesitation that hangs around Gerontius's words, always contrasting with the calm sagacity of his guardian angel.

I'd always thought that The Apostles and The Kingdom, Elgar's next ventures into the oratorio genre were more convinced works. Dogmatic, taking scripture as read and parroting the bible in a less imaginative way. I was wrong. Lately I've been listening to Mark Elder's sublime recording of The Kingdom, ahead of his Apostles project later this year. And although Elgar does indeed take his words directly from the bible, he conceived both works in a much freer manner. Working without a plan, he pieced the works together bit by bit and were originally conceived in one span. It was as if he was convincing himself about Christ's ministry on earth through music. Tellingly he did not complete The Judgment, which was to be the final panel in the triptych. The doubter of Gerontius becomes the silent narrator of The Apostles and The Kingdom, trying to find a way back to faith after his post-Gerontius depression.

That tug-of-war between faith and apathy can be heard in a particularly thrilling piece of counterpoint within the Pentecost 'scene' of The Kingdom. The Disciples profess fiery baptism by the Holy Spirit. The People who have gathered, however, question who these supposed prophets are. 'Behold, are not all these which speak, Galileans? And how hear we, every man in our tongue, wherein we were born?' Over the course of an intense musical landscape - not dissimilar to the theatrical demons' chorus in Gerontius - Elgar plays out the doubter and doubted in one great gesture. It is followed by Peter's great sermon about the fulfilment of the prophecy (couched in a glowing D flat major theme, first heard in the prelude). But rather than some dogmatic Holy Joe, Elgar reveals himself as a profoundly human conduit to faith through the torrid chorus and Peter's aching tones. Elgar's religious works are not propaganda for organised religion, but the complex outpourings of a man as confused by faith as any of us.

Rosenkavalier Removals

2012-01-25T09:54:00.003Z

If I every need to move to or fro' Bristol, I know which company I'll choose to do the humping and dumping. While looking for an online copy of the libretto for Der Rosenkavalier this morning I happened upon Rosenkavalier Removals, operating from the heart of Clifton. One can only hope that there's a driver called Octavian and their first customer was Sophie von Faninal. Sadly the website lacks the obvious silver rose company logo. Click here for more information.

Der Rosenkavalier opens at ENO this weekend with Sarah Connolly (pictured) taking the title role. Amanda Roocroft is the Marschallin, Sophie Bevan sings Sophie, while stalwart John Tomlinson is Baron Ochs. The revival of David McVicar's production (originally a Opera North/Scottish Opera co-production) is conducted by Ed Gardner. Click here for more information.

Sergei Polunin leaves The Royal Ballet

2012-01-24T18:20:00.003Z

Despite being thoroughly championed by Monica Mason in her final season - with cinema screenings of performances in Manon, The Sleeping Beauty and Romeo and Juliet - Sergei Polunin has resigned from The Royal Ballet. He joined the company in 2007 and was promoted to Principal in 2010 at the age of 19. A sterling talent with winning stage presence, it will prove a significant loss to the company. Monica Mason said:

This has obviously come as a huge shock, Sergei is a wonderful dancer and I have enjoyed watching him tremendously, both on stage and in the studio, over the past few years. I wish him every success in the future.

Polunin (pictured with Lauren Cuthbertson in Manon) has resigned with immediate effect. Casting replacements for his performances in The Dream, Romeo and Juliet (broadcast to cinemas around the world on 22 March) and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland are yet to be announced. Rumours that he will move to American Ballet Theatre are unconfirmed. He has recently been dancing with another former Royal dancer Ivan Putrov at Sadler's Wells. For more information click here.

Photo © ROH/Tristram Kenton

20th Century South Bank

2012-01-23T17:44:00.001Z

The 2012/13 Southbank Centre season is a 20th century fest. This morning Artistic Director Jude Kelly and her colleagues unveiled a series named after Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise. Throughout 2013, the SBC resident orchestras and visitors follow the chapters of the New York-based critic's best-selling text. The LPO will take the lion's share of those concerts, provoking some excellent programming, though the season highlights are by no means exclusive to that series. The Philharmonia will explore the music Witold Lutosławski, led by Principal Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, who spoke with great warmth about his relationship with the Polish composer.

With the focus so readily fixed on The Rest is Noise, there is a slight deficit within the piano and chamber programming at the centre. While visits from the Jerusalem Quartet, the Quatuor Diotima (with Barbara Hannigan), Piotr Anderszewski and Mitsuko Uchida give glamour, there are notable absences in the line-up. Those looking for small-scale gems will, as ever, turn to Wigmore, who announce 12/13 programming next month.

But for big sound, the Southbank has mustered a truly exciting list. And Vladimir Jurowski was as passionate about the earlier part of the LPO's season as he was about the Ross-inspired series itself. It will be terrific to hear him commanding Zemlinsky's rarely heard The Florentine Tragedy, a true competitor to the outrageous sounds of Salome (the final scene of which opens The Rest is Noise in January 2013).

Here is my pick of the forthcoming season:

26 September 2012 - LPO (Jurowski)
Highlights from Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten
and a concert-performance of Zemlinsky's Florentine Tragedy

5 October 2012 - LPO and the Russian National Orchestra (Jurowski)
Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture (200 years on), Britten Lachrymae
and Shostakovich 7 (70 years on)

1 December 2012 - LPO (Jurowski)
Zimmermann's Ecclesiastical Action
and Brahms German Requiem

2 December 2012 - Philharmonia (John Wilson)
A concert performance of Léhar's The Merry Widow

20 January 2013 - Karim Said
Barenboim's protégé explores Berg, Debussy, Schoenberg and Janáček in the first of three recitals
Further appearances in March and June (all part of The Rest is Noise)

29 January 2013 - OAE (Rattle)
Mozart 39, 40 and 41 in the same programme. Need I say more?

30 January 2013 - Philharmonia (Salonen)
The beginning of the Lutosławski festival, with performances of his Musique funèbre
and the Piano Concerto (with dedicatee Krystian Zimerman at the keyboard)
Ravel's complete Daphnis forms the second half... further concerts on 7 and 21 March

1 March 2013 - Members of the Berliner Philharmoniker
The glorious Berliners come in slightly smaller numbers for a night of 1920s cabaret

19 March 2013 - Stephen Kovacevich
A glorious programme including early Beethoven, late Schubert and late Brahms

9 April 2013 - Wiener Philharmoniker (Tilson Thomas)
A classic Viennese programme of the Schoenberg Theme and Variations and Brahms

22 April 2013 - Budapest Festival Orchestra (Fischer)
Imogen Cooper gives Beethoven 1 in the first half before
Fischer and the Budapest virtuosos no doubt dazzle with the Bartók Concerto for Orchestra

27 April 2013 - LPO (Jurowski)
Webern Variations Op. 30, Berg Lulu Suite, Martinů Double Concerto
and Bartók Music for Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta

29 May 2013 - Steven Osborne
Osborne gives his 'party piece' Vingt Regards sur l'enfant Jésus

9 June 2013 - Spira Mirabilis
Lauded after recent performances at the Aldeburgh Festival the conductor-less band
play Strauss's aching Metamorphosen

13 June 2013 - Philharmonia (Ashkenazy)
James Ehnes plays the Elgar Violin Concerto with Tchaikovsky 5 in the second half

For full information about the 2012/13 season at the Southbank Centre click here.

Against the Current

2012-01-22T11:28:00.000Z

What is the 'The Great American Novel' about? From Ahab to Gatsby (and beyond) its heroes pine for goals that are always out of reach. Chad Harbach's 500-page debut novel The Art of Fielding aspires to the heritage. For Henry Skrimshander his failing grasp finds a neat metaphor in the rules and rhythms of the baseball field. Throw in a just-older-than-Clooney college president, a prescription drug-dependent daughter, a gay roommate, the Jewish jock who just won't quit and all the sub-academic waffle you could wish for and you've got yourself the thinking-man's Dawson's Creek. But is The Art of Fielding any more than that?

I call it a thinking-man's rather than thinking-person's novel - mirroring Harbach's queasy use of 'freshperson' for college newcomers - because this is an unashamedly masculine text. Even its homosexual plot is framed within brute heterosexual terms. President Guert Affenlight has never fallen for a man before; he's an experienced lover of fawning Cambridge females. So Owen, the black poetic object of his affections, moulds and mules to feminised stereotype. He's soft, beautiful and bruised. While inclusive of Owen's sexuality, there is no doubt that he and Affenlight sit apart from the mainstream. Spouting Whitman, Chekhov and Shakespeare to each other, their sex couldn't be more different from the thoroughbred physical force of Mike Schwarz's lust for Affenlight's daughter.

Henry is stranded in the middle of these extremes. He's a provincial mute with an unstinting art for fielding, learned from his baseball idol, whose textbook he carries wherever he goes. Henry bewilders all who see him on the field. But, blocked by an inability to communicate beyond his baseball mit, he bottles at the worst moment (only, of course, to save the day à la Hollywood). Set on the banks of Lake Michigan, with snowy winters, endless summers and kaleidoscopic falls, Harbach cannot resist the provincial glamour of the American college idyll. And with Affenlight's Harvard heritage and unending (and blind) love of Melville, Emerson and Whitman, Harbach determinedly roots his debut in 'real American values'.

But within these clichéd bounds, Harbach creates a much richer and rarer narrative. The plot may find coincidence far too easily, but the complexity of its inner dialogues belie the simplicity of its outer imagery. The characters veer to stereotype, only to buck the trend at their most significant moments. Even Henry's last gasp is a downright failure, a celebration of the stream of errors that he so 'manfully' avoids in the first half of the novel. And Harbach creates a constant pitcher to catcher throw between expectation and reality.

It is in Harbach's characters' failures The Art of Fielding thrives. The team's success on the field aspires to all heroic narratives, but it ultimately eschews grandstanding gestures in favour of rawer home truths. In its final pages, the novel charts the individual and emotional elements of daily life. By taking down the flag, ignoring the much-vaunted dream and focussing on the self, Harbach's novel begins to live. It's far from flawless, but you cannot fail to be moved by this coming-of-age epic. Click here to order a copy.

Leaning on an Archway

2012-01-20T17:41:00.001Z

You could spend a lifetime in the Kunsthistorichesmuseum in Vienna and you'd never see everything. Not only is it packed with some of the greatest canvases in the world, but the building itself - constructed during the 1880s and finally opening in 1891 - is an architectural treasure trove. On a recent trip, my other half discovered this little gem hovering above our heads as we scoffed a cake just before closing. The museum café is in a grand rotunda which endlessly glorifies the munificence of Emperor Franz Josef. But it was little surprise that our eyes trained on this cute Wienerisch boy with his even cuter rump. Clearly exhausted from too much Ringstraße historicism - the worker's mallet discarded at his feet - the young man leans against the archway, checking if anyone can see him. All of these glorious interiors were conceived by Baron Karl von Hasenauer, one of the pupils of the gay architectural pair August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll, who designed the Staatsoper. Totems of the Gründerzeit era, they were nevertheless crushed by the Emperor's unwitting criticism of their 'sunken chest' of an opera house. van der Nüll killed himself in 1868 and, distraught, von Sicardsburg died 10 weeks later, diagnosed with TB. It's a sweet but probably erroneous thought that this charming boy was von Hasenauer's tribute to his teachers.

Taking the Czech out of Janáček

2012-01-20T16:24:00.003Z

Who was Janáček before Jenůfa? It's a question that relatively few people can answer. A new disc from the Capella Amsterdam and Daniel Reuss aims to explore the rich choral repertoire written he wrote before Janáček and his operas became inseparable. It's a real shame, then, that the chosen performers fail to seize this music by the scruff of the neck.

For a man who'd been educated by Augustinian monks in Brno, it's unsurprising that choral music formed the backbone of Janáček's early output. Choirboy turned choir master and soon enough Janáček was creating Czech-language choral societies within his adopted hometown. He arranged chirpy Moravian duets by Dvořák in the 1880s and wrote a number of highly original choruses. Although these works are emblematic of pronounced personal national sentiment, they are given oddly reserved performances on this new disc.

Truth be told, there's nothing that you can fundamentally fault on the disc. It's beautifully produced, with Daniel Reuss moulding a well-blended and attractive sound from superb singers. Philip Mayers accompanies well on the piano and the dynamics of both instrumentalists and chorus alike are well contrasted. But it's only tells us half the story, offering a weird mismarriage of prim performance and passionate repertoire. Surely this is the music of a frustrated artist, speaking about national pride in a time of latter day suppression; Janáček was clamouring to be heard. These performances here remain cosy and reflective.

The Wild Duck - an achingly melancholic mixed voice chorus from 1885 - is sung with typically ravishing care. It's a glorious track and certainly answers the inherent poetry within the music. But while Janáček is still firmly in his Romantic mould, there are many quirks and curiosities that go untouched. It's only in the highly individual 1906 setting of the Lord's Prayer that you real begin to hear a hint of that Slavic thrill (thanks to the sterling tenor Thomas Walker). That feral tone should always be lurking in the background, but Reuss seems determined to play it down, even in the gloriously weird Říkadla of 1925. A great choice of repertoire and a wonderful choir, but ultimately they don't mix. Click here to order a copy.

Cocktail Hour in Vienna

2012-01-20T15:31:00.001Z

Adolf Loos was a visionary. Like a modernist Midas, he applied his pared-down aesthetic to every thing he touched. From sugar refineries to palatial villas, nothing he conceived was remotely ostentatious. Although many of the buildings he conceived are now closed to public view, the 1908 Kärtner Bar in Vienna (now more widely known as the American Bar) is a gem of style and substance and open to anyone in need of a good Martini after a day tramping around the Innere Stadt. The American flag over the door, studded with a glass mosaic spelling out the bar's name speaks for a world where spirits aren't measured and time cares less.

Inside and you realise that it's only a tiny space. A cube with seating for a maximum of 20 people, it celebrates intimacy, though most of the time it is packed to the rafters with Vienna's chic set. An array of spirits and glassware decorate the bar which runs the length of the room. The snug darkness of the place glows in the honeyed light of backlit onyx (a trick that Mies van der Rohe would later use) and shaded lamps over the bar. It offers the perfect luxurious hideaway from the pomp and circumstance of the Innere Stadt. Originally, the bar conceived as just that, a private men's club hideaway where membership was highly exclusive.

Loos's architecture eventually found a more democratic use as a public bar and, over 100 years after the bar first opened, it's still a firm Viennese favourite. When you've finally found your way to a seat are sipping one of its many varieties of Martini, the space suddenly opens up. While the floor plan is tiny, Loos maximised the impression by creating a geometrical coffered ceiling and then surrounding the bar on all sides with high mirrors. The effect is like being in a booth in a much larger space as the ceiling appears to go on forever. So while you are guaranteed intimacy with your alcoholically-minded companion or friends, Loos never cramps your style. Toilets and cloakroom are squeezed elegantly under the bar, guarded by outward opening chrome gates (to save the inebriated falling down the stairs). If ever there were a bar to be replicated in every city, it's Loos's Kärtner Bar in Vienna. But while it pays sincere homage to the American cocktail dream, its look and impressive sense of utility are thoroughly Viennese.

No BAFTA nod for Weekend

2012-01-18T09:37:00.002Z

Widely lauded by critics and public alike, Weekend, Andrew Haigh's insightful film about a 48-hour period in two men's lives, has failed to appear on the BAFTA list in any form. And with a gong scheduled for 'Outstanding British Film', the absence of a piece of work that was compared with Brokeback Mountain and Before Sunrise seems very odd indeed. Instead the nomination list reads My Week with Marilyn, Senna, Shame, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and We Need to Talk About Kevin. Admittedly a very strong crop, though no stronger than Weekend itself. Or is this BAFTA simply hunting glory? Has it backed British films, like David Cameron, that only score wider commercial success as well as artistic plaudits? Whatever the reasoning, the absence of this original and significant film (regardless of the sexuality of its protagonists) is wrong. As a consolation, Andrew Haigh has been nominated for Best Screenplay in the Evening Standard Film Awards. Weekend is released on DVD in March: click here to pre-order a copy.

Motivic Thinker

2012-01-18T08:37:00.002Z

Jonathan Biss is prepared. Every phrase is pondered and all energy accounted for in his playing. A luscious cantabile touch and a springing contrapuntal left hand bring life and drama to his scores. But he's not for all markets. The motivic fascinations of Beethoven and Janáček thrive under his microscope, but he over-analyses the grandstanding thrills of Chopin.

Last night's QEH concert starts a near-decade long project focussing on the Beethoven piano sonatas. The voicing of the capricious first sonata, with which Biss opened his recital, and the clarity of the first gestures in 'Les adieux' promise much. Viewing Beethoven's intense studies as a springboard to grander architecture, Biss creates huge structures out of the tiniest fragment. But the thrill of pure pianism occasionally founders. Having ignited fires within the works, Biss spends too much time putting them out in the final movements.

And it was that choice to work against the energies of the pieces - conceiving Chopin's Polonaise-Fantaisie in A flat as a Lisztian exegesis or the encore from Schumann's Kreisleriana with improvisatory intensity - that undermined the broader scope. The considerable gains that are achieved through Biss's insights are too often undercut by an aversion to showing off. The Chopin, while equally intense and cerebral, is still a showcase for the pianist. And the streams of scales in the Rondo of 'Les adieux' similarly require that element of grandstanding.

But in the hushed calm of Beethoven's slow movements or the embittered introspection of Janáček's piano works, Biss finds a real reflection of his own intense study of motif and timbre. The textures of In the Mists and the Janáček Piano Sonata shifted arrestingly from lush rhapsody to arid staccato within bars. But in order to thrill on a larger scale - and with the Waldstein and the Hammerklavier ahead of him - Biss needs to untether himself, raise his right hand off the keyboard and have more fun.

Biss's first recording of Beethoven Piano Sonatas is now out on Onyx. Click here to order a copy.

Nobody puts Schubert in a corner...

2012-01-17T09:56:00.001Z

We all have very different ideas of who Schubert is. Put another way, he's malleable enough that we can make him our own. There's such a range of emotions within his output - particularly his songs - that we can find music for almost any mood. Yesterday, Hanno Müller-Brachmann sang the Heine settings from Schwanengesang and other compositions using his verse (by Brahms and Schumann) at Wigmore Hall. You can listen to the concert again via the iPlayer by clicking here. Boulezian's Mark Berry wrote the following in his review:

Müller-Brachmann’s voice here and in 'Am Meer' sounded properly Wagnerian in its musico-dramatic response, a reminder of his Amfortas and his Rheingold Wotan. A slight roughness of tone on the final line may have been deliberate: the woman has poisoned him with her tears.

Some readers, including those I know to have a great knowledge of Lieder felt that Müller-Brachmann's big voice approach felt 'like an elephant tip-toeing round bone china'. It's a feeling I know well, having been unimpressed by Jonas Kaufmann's hefty rendering of Die schöne Müllerin at the same address last year. But it's a version that we need to hear to challenge our own fixed views on how we want (being the operatic word) to hear this music.

Just before that lunchtime concert kicked off, Jessica Duchen posted a Schubert story on her blog in which she suggests that in our world of mayhem, 'Schubert brings us back to purity, truth and tenderness'. Both the reviews of the review and Jessica's open response to the E flat major piano trio have real truths, but they are only half of the story. Like all truly great composers (yawn at that phrase though we may), Schubert offers to us the whole gamut of human experience. We want 'purity' and we go to The Shepherd on the Rock. If we want truth, we might turn to 'Der Doppelgänger'. Finally, we seek tenderness and we listen to the second movement of the String Quintet. In all my responses, I've deliberately chosen works from Schubert's last months. They do not offer the same picture. And they may not chime with the versions of 'purity, truth and tenderness' that Jessica seeks. But there's a bipolarity to the music. Every silver lining has a cloud (and, of course, vice versa).

While there's bound to be a backlash to the sex, drugs, rock and roll version of Schubert - the depressive, the opium smoker, the syphilitic homosexual - we should be equally wary about 'cleaning up' his image in order to find comfort in his music. Many try and limit Schubert, by squeezing him into the box we've created marked with his name. But he offers solace whoever he is. The Amfortas or Wotan Schubert is just part of that. Like those characters, he mirrors humanity's strengths and, more often than not, failings and, if we want to listen to Schubert's music, we should be prepared to be confronted by that less attractive Doppelgänger too.

John Vaughan Williams

2012-01-16T19:00:00.001Z

I am a huge fan of the National Theatre's adaptation of War Horse. Having not read the book, that award-winning production was my first experience of Michael Morpurgo's story. I hadn't realised until my partner read the book that the original is told from the horse's perspective. The theatre production famously uses puppetry to represent the animals and some of the war machinery once the tale shifts to the Somme. Capitalising on others' success, Hollywood has finally caught up with the story. As ever, the cinematic results appeared dumbed down. They've plumped for a straight linear narrative retelling of the story. So far, so dull. I haven't seen Steven Spielberg's film, given the largely negative reports and will now wait until the DVD is released, but I have taken the chance to listen to what is exaggeratedly called the soundtrack.

John Williams has always been a master of the filmscore. His post-Korngold meets Holst (via Sibelius) approach to the space race defined the decade in which I was born. Equally, the sobbing melancholy of his Schindler's List theme provided a rare blockbuster's insight into what we lost in Central Europe during the 1940s. But while Korngold provided the impetus for those score, Vaughan Williams seems to have been the springboard for War Horse. Sadly, like Spielberg's direction, the score is a diminishing return.

The opening movement 'Dartmoor, 1912' uses myriad flourishes from VW's best. There's a cadenza that's straight out of The Lark Ascending. Pentatonic melody and harmony dominates. The Tallis Fantasia pops up. Lombardic rhythms follow parallel fifths. You name the 'folk' touch and John Williams employed used it. But rather than the textural diversity of his previous scores, this is not a homogenous sound world. It's merely a smash and grab through purportedly English musical identity.

What Williams has failed to employ is something akin to Vaughan Williams' use of folk song or Tudor hymnody. People may carp and lob the cow pat moniker at his output, but the constant variation and development of themes such as 'Dives and Lazarus' or Tallis's Third Mode Melody grounds its gestures in a larger history. It's idealised, but at least it has something to say. John Williams uses the gestures without the signifiers. And as the score inevitably turns away from string-rich symphonics to synthesised sound, you wonder whether it would have been better to employ a composer versed in the native musical tongue. But that lack of understanding seems indicative of the film as a whole.

Calling All Apostles

2012-01-15T21:49:00.002Z

Earlier today a reader asked which particular recording of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius I would recommend above all others. There are loads of cherishable versions out there... Britten, Boult, Hickox. But the sonic luxuries of Mark Elder's 2008 recording with the Hallé - with Paul Groves as Gerontius, Alice Coote as the 'female' Angel and Bryn Terfel as the male angels - are pretty hard to beat. It's been followed by a glorious recording of The Kingdom and this year the Hallé will perform The Apostles. There's a slight twist on the final instalment, because this time the Hallé has invited 'experienced singers' to join the Associate Choir for the performance (which will be recorded live). The concert, conducted by Elder, will take place at Bridgewater Hall on 5th May. Rebecca Evans, Alice Coote, Paul Groves, Brindley Sherratt and Jacques Imbrailo are the soloists. Not many people can spare the time and commitment required to be a member of a symphonic chorus, so this is a rare opportunity. And the promise of singing 'The Spirit of the Lord' alone is appealing enough. It requires one rehearsal in March and then a few days leading up to the big event. Click here for more information.

The Holy Grail?

2012-01-14T08:21:00.002Z

They've rediscovered a piano piece by Brahms and it's not half bad. It is a complete work, rather than a fragment and is closely related to his glorious Horn Trio. You can judge for yourself next Saturday, when it will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3's Music Matters, played by the somewhat wilted András Schiff. In its editorial today, however, The Guardian teeters a bit further into the realms of musical fantasy:

All of this stirs a tantalising thought. Somewhere out there, some of the most sought-after scores in western music may yet be lurking. The last two movements of Schubert's 'Unfinished' Symphony, perhaps; maybe Bach's lost St Mark Passion.

Great as those thoughts are, The Guardian isn't the first to ponder the losses. Schubert did write a third movement, indeed he orchestrated some of it (pictured here) and then abandoned it. The fourth movement, if it existed at all, is likely to have been transformed into Entr'acte for Schubert's incidental music to Rosamunde, though that is widely disputed - it merely has the same standard orchestration. And Bach scholars have long held the view that the Mark Passion (which was performed in 1731 and 1744) was probably a parody oratorio, using juicy scraps from other works and a greater than usual emphasis on four-part chorales. Similarly a Luke Passion has been vaunted, but has slid into the Bach apocrypha. Tantalising as these ideas may be, they are sadly not the Holy Grails of music, more the pots of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Experience is a Hard School

2012-01-14T06:31:00.000Z

With love and sex comes great responsibility. Or at least that's the theory. For Jack and Will it's a lesson that neither learns well. Their friendship is the backbone of White's Jack Holmes and his Friend. Both characters profess attractive traits but neither is particularly attractive. What unfolds between them is a gripping satire of shabby bourgeois manners.

At first, White plays with expectation and gives us a coming out novel, with Jack Holmes as its goofy protagonist. Labouring under the weight of his genitalia, he frightens straight girls and attracts gay men in equal measure. You often feel that the only reason Jack ends up gay is because he gets a kick from the envious admiration of other less well-endowed boys. He takes chances, capitalises on trust, but Jack is thrillingly ordinary.

He falls head over heels for a similarly plain Will. Straight, urbane, but lacking glamour, Jack finds comfort in their easy repartee and drink-filled agenda. Having written a terrible novel, Will lapses into suburban marriage, while Jack stumbles into and then embraces promiscuity. In many ways there's nothing original about White's tale; like its characters, the narrative rejoices in mediocrity with the merest hint of Mad Men-style vermouth.

Within those prosaic bounds, however, White uncovers great poetry. Adjectivally sparse, his text is peppered with pin-point metaphors and rich observations of social and sexual interaction. The selfishness of his protagonists is always undercut by a mordant fascination with their myopia. Morality is fluid, but emotions remain the same and they flap and falter for our delight. There's great warmth too, but gay or straight, the rules are the same.

Although the larger part of the novel is resolutely pre-Gay, pre-Stonewall, pre-AIDS (though the latter two are never far away), White uses these supposedly simpler times to throw light on our own. Maybe they weren't the good old days. Rather than chastising propriety, White (like his character Will) offers an olive branch to puritanism and domestic comfort. What's the point of libertinage if it ends with the clap and an unknown plague? But only in the final pages do Jack and Will seem able to answer that question. Experience is a hard school, but it's gripping while you're in it and White's prose remains a poetic dream. Click here to order a copy.

Offenbach's Slippery Tales

2012-01-13T13:21:00.002Z

You think you know an opera. And I've been listening to Les contes d'Hoffmann since I was a kid. I had a copy of the Domingo recording he made with Ozawa and I listened to it all the time. Lately, I've replaced those old DG tapes with Alagna's performance from Lyon (under Nagano). Hardly Domingo's equal, but a great recording nonetheless. And I've poured over it lots lately while writing programme notes for the forthcoming Richard Jones production at ENO.

There are a number of problems in getting to know the piece. One is that no version is ever the same as the previous one you heard. Offenbach died before the piece reached the Opéra Comique stage (having written it originally for another theatre that went bankrupt). So Guiraud (who'd done the recits for Carmen) stepped in and rearranged the score for performance. Ever since, every musical Tom, Dick and Harry has had a go. At Covent Garden they perform a more dubious Choudens version (with a few additional changes) with the Giulietta act in the middle. Hybrid it may be, but it works. At ENO, they're preserving Offenbach's original plan of placing the Giulietta act last.

But those issues about versions, editions and order are irrelevant. Because Offenbach is ultimately impossible to get to know. You think you've got a handle on what he's trying to achieve and then the score slips from your hands. True, there are clear formal demarcations, obviously stylistic games and recognisable characters, but the musico-dramatic plan for the opera is one in which illusion plays a major part. Offenbach doesn't want us to be able to grapple with his style. It changes from bar to bar, from act to act. And like Hoffmann himself, we become drunk on the experience and it keeps giving and giving. I cannot wait to hear it live again. But I wonder whether I'll remember a single thing!

Elegy over Energy

2012-01-13T08:11:00.003Z

Album covers can be misleading. The Renoir landscape on the front of Hyperion's new Fauré Cello Sonatas disc should be the perfect fit. But its whirlpool of Côte d'Azur oils ignores the steelier tones of much of this music. Rather than languishing in an impressionistic haze, cellist Alban Gerhardt and pianist Cecile Licad are thrillingly direct in their performances. If only Fauré was up to such scrutiny.

The two cello sonatas, written just after the Great War, are pugnacious scores. Gerhardt and Licad launch into both with decidedly un-Gallic ferocity. This is music that claims to speak of its time, rather than a hazy remembrance of things past. But interest wanes during the endless cat and mouse games of the outer movements. Fauré is at home in the central elegies - it's not for nothing that the Requiem and the Pavane are his greatest legacies.

Even within the more reflective occasional pieces (all written before the War), Gerhardt and Licad remain wonderfully plainspoken. The Op. 24 Élégie may initially lack tenderness, but their performance hides a more bruised character. Papillon is a spirited piece of whimsy. If its tempo was pushed too far, the Sicilienne is a gloriously louche response. Collectively, these postcards offer a more three-dimensional listening experience.

And it's those pieces, of course, that readily subscribe to the Renoir idyll. Although Fauré piles on lush cadences at the end of the G minor sonata, he cannot bury the downright ordinary material at its core. Gerhardt and Licad deliver all these goods with palpable tension and technique, but the sonatas are sometimes over-exposed and consequently leave you longing for more Renoir. Click here to order a copy.

In praise of Quasthoff

2012-01-12T08:12:00.003Z

Thomas Quasthoff has announced that, due to persistent health problems, he will retire. Since his birth in 1959, Quasthoff has fought hard against physical impairment caused by his mother's thalidomide poisoning during pregnancy. Despite intense physical and, no doubt, emotional difficulties, he has proved to be one of the most inspiring vocal artists of our age. His recordings of Lieder are some of the best you will hear. The last time I heard him perform live was during the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester's visit to the Barbican with the Matthew Passion. After the infectious pugnacity of his rendition of 'Gebt mir meinen Jesum wieder' came a wonderfully steely 'Mache dich, mein Herze, rein'. The force he gave to 'Welt, geh aus, lass Jesum ein!' will remain indelibly linked to that aria. It's a great shame that he can no longer continue to wow with his sublime voice and innate musical intelligence.

Arise Sir Tony

2012-01-11T08:55:00.001Z

It's a PR dream. A conductor is given a knighthood in the New Year's Honours' List and his first gig - after a home team Meistersinger - is a concert of British music with the LSO. Rather than some faux show of jingoism, last night's concert with Antonio Pappano at the helm was a searing triumph of nous over nationality. All the theatricality that we have come to expect from Pappano was alive and well, but so too was a sense of form and counterpoint within Elgar's lustrous first symphony.

Clearly the concert was planned long before Pappano's gong was announced. But the party atmosphere was immediately apparent in a sequence of dances from Thomas Adès Powder her Face. Salvos of crude muted brass vollied with pizzicato strings in an acidic run of foxtrots, waltzes and tangos.

But the first half was dominated by Antoine Tamestit's searing attack on the Walton Viola Concerto. Full-bodied Gallic sound met head on with Walton's compound rhythms and harmonies. The middle movement was a real essay in sass and swagger. But Tamestit likewise found heartfelt lyricism in the work, responding to the inflections appearing in the orchestra around him. A vehicle, for sure, but one presented in an equally impressive showcase.

After the dazzle of the first half, Elgar's sober nobility felt truly melancholic. Following a pregnant Andante, the surges of the Allegro were delivered with ferocity. Not for Pappano the myth of Elgar the country gent. This was as complex a symphonic landscape as anything you would find in Strauss or Mahler. Barbed tutti and vivid counterpoint offered contrasts with the slow ache of the Adagio. Restrained, never verging into saccharine sentimentality, the movement had a dying fall. Such rich preparation meant that the finale was a tussle between moods. When the noble theme reappeared in all its contrapuntal glory, it was impossible not to feel that this is Britain's greatest addition to the symphonic repertoire. Gutsy stuff indeed. You can listen again to the BBC Radio 3 live broadcast by clicking here.

The Coughing Debate

2012-01-10T08:36:00.000Z

A woman was dying of consumption. We shouldn't have been looking, but it was gripping nonetheless. 'Cessarono. Gli spasmi del dolore. In me rinasce m'agita Insolito vigore! Ah! io ritorno a vivere.' And with those words Violetta breathed her last. Despite the hideous illness with which La traviata ends, last night's performance at the Royal Opera House was dominated by the sound of the audience's coughing. Like an empathetic bus-load of consumptives, the auditorium rang with the sound of hacking. And, more or less, it only occurred during the quiet bits (of which there are a lot in Act 3).

Although La traviata provides the most ironic instance of bronchial barking intruding on the music, it isn't the worst. The slow and steady Arabian Dance in The Nutcracker often prompts such spasms and I remember an awful instance during the final bars of an LSO Mahler 9. My friend, sitting next to me in the Barbican, railed loudly against the offending cougher during the applause. So, why do people cough during classical music?

The short answer is nerves or, more bluntly, a lack of concentration. They feel on edge. The silence and focus required by these performances has a bizarrely reverse effect. Attention is brought back on to uncertain members of the audience and they feel the need to act out. Bronchial emissions are the mid-performance equivalent of the entrance and curtain call applause. We somehow feel bereft when silenced by the very thing that has, supposedly, brought us in the first place.

Genuinely 'ill' responses, the winter cold or (heaven forbid) consumption, are incredibly few and far between. What dominates is the arid open-mouthed cough, without a hand or scarf or jumper placed in front of the mouth. It echoes (as one BBC National Orchestra of Wales concert programme used to tell us) at the same volume as a mezzo forte note on the horn. It's like adding a whole new level of orchestration to the work or, as in last night's performance, placing Violetta in a ward of hundreds of consumptives.

It's noticeable that where concentration is largely much better - at Wigmore Hall for instance - coughing is minimal. Although the inter-movement cough, alas also prevalent at Wigmore, is a particularly odd phenomenon, these sounds chime with the New Zealand-born musicologist Christopher Small's theories about audience behaviour. Like clapping, it allows us to fill the auditory space. Having been wowed (or bored) by what's been performed, we feel the need to make our own noise. Concert halls (and opera houses) seem to claim one-way conversation; audiences insist on two-way dialogue. Candidly, people just don't know where to stop. Clearly, nothing is sacred anymore.

But then concert halls and opera houses were built as social spaces and audiences rightly react to their environments in a fashion similar to the way they would in a restaurant or bar. They've paid for the privilege and want to react accordingly. But the coughing thing presents a particular challenge. For one, it's incredibly annoying and invades the space of other members of the audience. But not only do we have to try and hear 'above' it, we also need to address why people actually feel on edge or lack the concentration required by a 35-minute stretch of music. So, it's not why do people cough, but why do they go at all? As ever, it's about music education.

Ermonela Jaho as Violetta and Stephen Costello as Alfredo
In The Royal Opera's production of La traviata
Photograph © ROH/Catherine Ashmore

Heroism Personified

2012-01-07T10:10:00.003Z

Your head might explode in the final track of Slavic Heroes. Bombarded by treacly tones and the lush eroticism of Szymanowski's Król Roger, this is heady stuff indeed. But it's just one of many such treats on Mariusz Kwiecień's new recording. Recital discs can be hit and miss. Too heavily themed and they appear gimmicky. Without a clear subject, they are vague vehicles. Here language is the only link. But from the familiar passages of Eugene Onegin to rarities by Smetana, Moniuszko and Dvořák, Kwiecień shows that he is truly a voice to reckon with.

For the first time, Harmonia Mundi has extended is production outfit to the UK. A surprising choice, then, to go to Poland. But if talent and quality are the only criteria, they have chosen well. The Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra (under Łukasz Borowicz) provides a luscious soundscape. Given the weight and wealth of Kwiecień's voice, they are placed prominently in the mix. The sound is occasionally a little too velvety, as there's more steel in this music than the recording lets on.

But it's a tiny price to pay for the bounties it affords. After the anaemic anti-hero of ENO's recent Onegin, Kwiecień is sex personified. The sheer lyrical arrogance of his dismissal of Tatyana breaks your heart. And, as if playing the opera for real, his Act 3 aria is palpably neurotic. Yet he can just as easily turn his hand to the spirited aria from Moniuszko's Haunted Manor or the vast otherworldliness of Szymanowski. I cannot wait to hear Kwiecień performing these roles live. Click here to order a copy.

18 Centuries of Wow

2012-01-06T08:38:00.002Z

The new incarnations and offshoots of Tate and the Gulbenkian aside, most of us weren't alive when the major galleries of this world celebrated their 10th anniversaries. Great collections stand the test of time. Many tramp through their hallways, gawp at their splendours and amass their postcards in a desperate attempt to relive the experience. The Neue Galerie in New York is a little different. It opened in 2001 and has since made a massive impression on Museum Mile. Presenting cross-cultural exhibitions, cabaret, lectures and its own fantastic collection of fin-de-siècle art, it has become one of the go-to exhibition spaces in New York City in just a decade. The catalogue for its 10th Anniversary exhibition is a hefty testament to its ability to punch above its weight.

Like Henry Tate, who laid the foundations for the British gallery's vast collection, the Neue Galerie built its leading range of Austrian and German paintings around one man's vision. Ronald S. Lauder (the son of Estée) amassed his precious collection through years of seizing rare opportunities. One of his providers was a singularly brilliant dealer called Serge Sabarsky (honoured by the museum in the name of its glorious café). The rest is history. Klimts were bought for eye-widening sums and displayed with great panache in the Neue's chic 5th Avenue home.

For their 10th anniversary, the Neue Galerie has broadened that remit. They've been led from the top. Lauder's collection stretches some 16 centuries back before Klimt was even a twinkle in his mother's eye. Medieval art works, Old Masters, Armoury, Picassos and Post-War German painting all rub shoulders with the more familiar elements of the Neue Galerie collection. And until 2 April, you can see this all displayed in its galleries.

For those of us unable to travel to New York, Prestel has issued a 500-page tome in response. Not only is it good for upper body strength, but is a remarkable testament to one man's taste, wealth and generosity. Accompanied with essays by leading writers in all the fields of Lauder's taste - no mean feat - this is a great book. There's a sense of celebration that runs through the volume (and, no doubt, the exhibition). The single reason that a catalogue and exhibition as important as this one can exist is down to that one man's munificence.

As the Liechtenstein family closes the doors to its collection in Vienna (claiming lack of public interest) and tax payers' support becomes increasingly precarious we cannot take such big gestures for granted. And although it would be a terrible shame if the European subsidised model waned, Lauder and the Neue Galerie present a truly impressive version of the philanthropist's vision. Get to New York if you can but, if you can't, this 10th Anniversary catalogue is a veritable keepsake. Click here to order a copy.

You cannot dream things lovelier

2012-01-04T22:20:00.002Z

Michael Head is an unaffected composer. Eschewing the harmonic twists of Warlock and, thankfully, Vaughan Williams' modish modality, his songs offer heartfelt utterances from a cluttered century. The great achievement of Hyperion Records new release of 27 of his songs is that they are delivered with untrammelled sincerity. It is a rich and rare disc.

Head will never turns heads. He's a moderate conservative, with a varied taste in poetry and a ballad-like approach to form and sound. While his contemporaries went into the dark recesses of the English psyche, the younger Head preferred a more relaxed and melancholic vein. Roderick Williams is the perfect protagonist for his tales. His fond remembrance in 'Limehouse Reach' and the open appeal of 'Lean out of the window' are a genuine joy to behold.

While Head attempts a more astringent sound world in 'The Viper', it can feel somewhat ersatz when compared with Britten's contemporaneous work. But there's atmosphere aplenty in Catherine Wyn-Rogers' Three Songs of Venice. Her and Williams' ease of communication matches Head's style perfectly. Ailish Tynan is perhaps a little too skittish with occasional blurs in diction, though she too sings beautifully.

Throughout, none of the singers overstates their case and Christopher Glynn is the model of coherence and care at the piano. Collectively, they are great exponents for this handsome list of songs. From the parlando ease of the Margaret Rose poems 'Star Candles' and 'The little road to Bethlehem' to the bravado of 'Tewkesbury Road', this is a great testament to an unpresuming gem of a composer. Click here to order a copy.

In praise of the Hawelka

2012-01-04T16:28:00.003Z

There are hundreds of Kaffehäuser, but for many the Café Leopold Hawelka (or just the Hawelka for short) has a special claim. It's been untrammelled by the snares of modernisation (though the recent addition of free WiFi is certainly a boon). Although immaculate, it wears its history on its slightly grimy sleeve. The posters that crowd the wall range from the bang up-to-date to the faded glories of the late 20th century. The telephone booth has the whiff of John Le Carré and the strong smell of Hausblend permeates across the dark space. All in all, atmosphere is everything at the Hawelka.

It was a great sadness, then, to hear on arriving in Vienna last week that Herr Hawelka had died. His 100 years of life witnessed everything from the collapse of the Empire, the attrition of the Great War, the establishment of a Republic, the rise of the Nazis, his own time in the Wehrmacht, the battle of Stalingrad and a return to a broken Vienna. Leopold had opened the café before the war, but it was only in 1945 that the place really hit is stride. Just a stone's throw from Stephansplatz, it would become the haunt of the disgruntled artist, the conductor, the playwright, the office worker and the tourist.

Sitting in the Hawelka last week, there was a sense of continued history, despite Leopold's absence. After the death of Frau Hawelka, Leopold began to take a slightly more back seat attitude to the café, though his presence on the morning shift (or in the photos on the walls) often belied a handover. You might be pushed to imagine that among the throngs of regulars are the geniuses of tomorrow, but there is something timeless about the great institution. As we sat there drinking another glass of Averna, Hawelka's legacy seemed primed to continue for a century after his death.

Click here to read an obituary of Leopold Hawelka (1911-2011) from the 30th December edition of the Daily Telegraph.

Returning Home?

2011-12-31T09:46:00.001Z

It's strange about seeing a picture out of context. I often go into the National Gallery to view Britain's only Klimt - a 1904 portrait of Hermine Gallia. But at the moment you can't see it in London, because it's come to Vienna to be displayed alongside other Klimts and Josef Hoffmann artefacts in an exhibition at the Unteres Belvedere. Seeing it in, what are for me, foreign surroundings was strange. I half expected to walk out of the room onto Trafalgar Square. Of course, it is a return home for the painting. Klimt 'belongs' in Vienna. Like those Aciman 'Shadow City' moments, whenever I see the painting in London it reminds me of Vienna. Seeing it here in Vienna, reminded me of London and the glories of the National Gallery. Loans. Restitution. Returning pictures to those to whom they belong. Adele Bloch-Bauer. The Elgin Marbles. How tedious it would be if all art works were back in their places of origin (largely because they wouldn't be in public collections where people could see them). But there's still a strange tug of the that location on the picture in its new home and vice versa. The 'Beethoven Frieze' also seemed out of place in the Belvedere (although it's officially in their collection). The Secession must surely feel bereft of that masterpiece created for its spaces. But these are just my own projections of homelessness.

Blasts from the Past

2011-12-31T04:00:00.000Z

Angelo Soliman is like Humpty Dumpty. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put him back together again. But the Wien Museum has attempted reassembly with its latest exhibition. Ironically, such a process has to divide myth and reality. Who was he? A West African slave, brought to Vienna through Sicily, Soliman became a trusted and respected figure in Enlightenment Vienna. After his death, however, he was exhibited in the Imperial Natural History collections as an exotic. As immigration arguments in Austria reach new intensity, the Wien Museum's Soliman exhibition offers historical guidance.

Soliman begins and ends with a cliché. No Austrians had been to Africa. It was a place where enormous monsters roamed the earth and the people wore fantastical clothing. It was 'other', sexual and ornamental (all depicted in gloriously un-PC imagery). By the time that slaves had arrived in Vienna, the distance between origin and orientalism had only widened. Despite expectation, Soliman gained a relatively privileged position in Viennese society. Normally, once an African slave hit puberty, they were cast out to fend for themselves. And although pictures show him as a dwarf or child servant, he was an adult in service to both Prince Lobkowitz and later the Liechtenstein family. He's depicted in the latter Prince's retinue as he goes to woo a wife and the bill for Soliman's uniform lies next to that picture (in one of many brilliant bits of intense research evident in the exhibition).

Winning a huge amount of money by gambling, Soliman married, bought a house and became an independent man (and was fired by the Liechtensteins for breaking contract). A page from a Masonic Lodge guestbook reveals that he spent time with Mozart. He was the quintessence of Enlightenment thinking. And the Liechtensteins asked him to work with them again towards the end of his life. But after his death, the Enlightenment figure became the exotic cliché once more. Soliman's body was placed in a ludicrous savage's costume and displayed for all to see. Whether as revenge for 'inappropriate' assimilation or for curiosity's sake, Soliman the reality disappeared.

To tell this story, an exhibition needs clarity and space and curator Philipp Blom and his team guide us deftly through cliché to reality (and back again). The final section of the exhibition - linking the racial stereotypes of Soliman's lifetime with those of more recent decades in Vienna - perhaps overstates its case. But it offers an essential bridge to the present day and a final film installation where black Viennese residents talk about their stories and the tolerance (or lack thereof) around them. Have we learned from history? The hushed but powerful question hovers over the exhibition. With immigration debates still raging between the SPÖ and FPÖ, Soliman offers an essential blast from the past.

Winter Dreams

2011-12-29T09:31:00.000Z

"Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories." Or so An Affair to Remember reminds us. And there is certainly a pervasive chill over the Kunsthistorisches Museum at the moment. The Wintermärchen exhibition offers a vast collation of images inspired by the darkest and coldest months of the year. While there's plenty of cheer against the elements, by the 20th century a more dangerous elision of man and his environment has returned.

Winter has its own mythology. The nativity, an old man warming his hands by a fire with a well-stocked table, the feasts, the slaughtered pig. From the clock faces of the medieval period to Joseph Beuys' own invented self-mythology, the season has created its own images and codes. The exhibition is a grand unlocking of those signifiers and, although it is somewhat crammed with examples, the simple chronology invites further investigation.

The work of the Breugel family dominates the early part of the exhibition, not only by their inherent drama, but through the vividness of their depictions. As the medieval period gives way to the excesses of the 16th and 17th century, the harshness of those canvases - not least the brutal slaughter of the innocents - turns to Rubens and his fecund feasts. Here a corpulent bean king stuffs his face.

Perhaps the most ostentatious work on display is the two sleighs from the late 18th and early 19th century. Gilded gliding fantasies with harnesses studded with bells, winter provided just another excuse to show off. And although they cannot compete with Turner's apocalyptic depiction of Hannibal crossing the Alps, David's picture of Napoleon following in his footsteps seems like a polite society portrait next to these golden playthings.

The real chill sets in after such glitzy glamour and Monet's gestural canvases offer more existential frigidity. Rivers burst their banks and water, ice and snow become one, distinguished only by the smallest shift in brush stroke. And there's an aesthetic cool to Carl Moll's picture of his studio on the Theresianumgasse. Placed in the top right-hand corner of the canvas, the studio appears like a fevered imago in a desolate white waste. Just the kind of place that you'd find Joseph Beuys' 'Schlitten'. Like Schubert's Leiermann, Monet, Moll and Beuys appear trapped in their frosty landscapes. And its with that deathly chill that you leave this dizzyingly encyclopaedic Winterreise.

Dead Opera

2011-12-28T09:29:00.002Z

Ariadne auf Naxos is set in the house of the richest man in Vienna. As entertainment is provided, things go horribly wrong. But it's all entertaining and ultimately rather moving. In Peter Konwitschny's production of From the House of the Dead (performed at the Wiener Staatsoper for the first time) the setting is the same and performers are provided. Sadly, neither entertainment nor emotion are on the menu.

Rather than Dostoevsky's Siberian prison camp, Konwitschny has transported us to an oligarch's flat - the frontcloth projections suggest today's Vienna. The brutality of the gulags is seemingly akin to the ferocity of high-end bad behaviour capitalism; Goryanchikov becomes the group's bullied plaything. But once the (apparently) Marxist point is made, the concept has nowhere to go. It railroads over the libretto, provides all-too-liberal translations and bars access to an already difficult piece.

Janáček's 1928 opera needs all the help it can get. In it, he often bypassed linear narrative in favour of reflective tableaux. It's open-ended nature troubled the composer's students when they discovered the score after his death (erroneously suggesting it was incomplete). But given a clear production, the opera can pack a terrific punch. Konwitschny ignores the warnings. He places his entire cast in black tie and pumps out skewed translations to support his vision. The effect is woefully misleading. And given that Patrice Chéreau's production started at the Wiener Festwochen (in a co-pro with the Holland Festival), it's perplexing as to why the Staatsoper has opted for this arrogant, cynical nonsense.

For all the posturing on stage, the musical performances remain strong. Franz Welser-Möst drives a hard bargain with the Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper. A ferocious overture prepares the ground for harsh exchanges and vivid colouring. Only a passing criticism would be that the musicians make light work of Janáček's complex textures; we should feel the effort involved in producing that caustic sound world. Nevertheless, it makes for a rich listening experience.

Sorin Coliban uses that strong orchestral bedrock to project his poetic Goryanchikov. It creates a lyrical counterpoint to the brutality of the opera. Similarly touching is Christopher Maltman's Shishkov. His is a voice in its prime. He offered only a cameo here, but we need to hear Maltman stretched by more diverse repertoire. Herbert Lippert shone as Skuratov, leading an impressive ensemble and strident chorus. Yet however hard they tried, nobody could overcome Konwitschny's die-hard cynicism. Janáček wrote that you could not 'extinguish the spark of God' in these characters; the current production at the Staatsoper is a deeply unappealing attempt on the opera's life.

Merry Christmas from Entartete Musik

2011-12-25T09:31:00.003Z

After a month of Tchaikovsky on the blog, it's high time I wished all the readers of Entartete Musik a Very Merry Christmas. It's been a great year for readership, with over 50,000 hits on the main site per month. The most popular posts this year have been the reports on Mahler's death 100 years after the event, an interview with the Berliner Philharmoniker's principal clarinettist Andreas Ottensamer, a preview of the Wagnerian elements in Melancholia, a review of Bernard Herrmann's string quartets, reports from the BBC Proms of Norrington's tendentious Mahler 9 and Brian's 'Gothic' Symphony and the daily posts from The Nutcracker Advent Calendar. There are currently nearly 1200 'fans' of the blog on Facebook and over 1300 followers on Twitter. The top-ten countries for visitors are United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, France, Canada, Italy, Spain and Australia, with many individual readers living in London, Vienna, New York, Berlin, Madrid, Buenos Aires and Chicago. Please keep returning to the blog, commenting, sending through suggestions; it's as wonderful to hear about your passions as it is to share mine. Next week I leave for Vienna once more, when there will be many reports from the Kaffeehausen, exhibitions about Klimt and Hoffmann, Winter Pictures at the Kunsthistorichesmuseum, From the House of the Dead at the Staatsoper, Die Fledermaus at the Volksoper and lots more besides. Have a great Christmas and I look forward to a truly degenerate 2012.

from The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker

Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Day 24 - Final Waltz and Apotheosis

2011-12-24T07:00:00.000Z

We reach the end of our journey. For the final moments of The Nutcracker Petipa asked for a 'grand general coda' with '128 bars of very brilliant and fiery music in 3/4'. Therefore like Act 1, Act 2 also ends with a waltz. But unlike the final bars of the first act, this dance is back in the original B flat major tonality. Everything has come full circle. The penultimate movement's D major (the key, of course, of the second movement in the whole ballet) provides a tertiary modulation back home. Tchaikovsky's waltz is a summation of everything that has occurred in the Kingdom of Sweets. Its metre recalls the Waltz of the Flowers, while its emphasis on the second beat of the bar harks back to the Sarabande rhythms of the Spanish Dance. Again, those minor key colours come through all the time, but like the coda of the pas de deux, jeopardy is kept firmly at bay. After the initial waltz theme, Tchaikovsky has a series of characteristic episodes: double reed woodwind are followed by the celesta and flutes, with a more heroic brass section perhaps recalling the Russian Trepak. The waltz theme returns in yet more outspoken fashion presaging more variegated harmonies and Tchaikovsky's ubiquitous hemiola. In the original ballet, of course, this was a depiction of the world of The Nutcracker as it ends - the Nephew has been released from the wooden toy and returned to the Kingdom of Sweets. In modern productions this tends to be a last hurrah before a swift departure for Nuremberg, where Clara is found asleep under the Christmas Tree and Hans-Peter is reunited with his Uncle Drosselmeyer. The music for the Apotheosis was originally intended to depict 'illuminated fountains' and the celesta returns for those luminous water drops. But by recalling the earlier melody that accompanied Clara's trip over the Sea of Lemonade, Tchaikovsky did perhaps intend to indicate another journey. Whatever conclusion a production chooses, there can be no doubt about Clara's (and our) glee as the score ends in a resolute B flat major.

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Ricardo Cervera as the Nephew in The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Day 23 - Coda

2011-12-23T08:44:00.004Z

After both the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince have dazzled with their respective variations, the pas de deux concludes with a virtuosic show stopper for them both. Gone are the grave harmonies and the eerie desiccation of the celesta. This is a genuinely happy and glorious conclusion. Tchaikovsky was asked to provide 'still lively music in 2/4 - 88 bars' and although he exceeded his brief, writing 102 bars, Petipa's description couldn't be more apt. There is a bouncing accompaniment on top of which Tchaikovsky places another descending melody. The emphasis on the ninth note in the scale lends a heartfelt quality, but the harmonies are otherwise simple. The first phrase moves to the dominant and the second phrase moves back to the tonic; it's just like the foursquare clarity of the overture. The presence of the submediant (next to the dominant in the scale) gives a slight minor tinge, but it too is understated. Such a move, however, does preface more chromatically inflected harmonies. There is a brief moment in E minor, there are diminished chords and all the richness of the composer's palate. Whereas before these harmonies portended emotional truths or elements of danger, Tchaikovsky quickly moves away through runs and sequences to more traditional tonal ground. This is a dance of resolution and it ends with a dazzling (if abrupt) cadence in D major.

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Yuhui Choe as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Day 22 - Variation II: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

2011-12-22T09:18:00.000Z

This dance is one of the most famous musical moments in all ballet. Tchaikovsky choice of the celesta (heard first as Clara and Hans-Peter's arrive in the Kingdom of Sweets) proved an ingenious one. Sugary but tart, its prissy bell-like notes later came to dominate the highly sexualised world of post-Wagnerian opera. Strauss, Schreker and Korngold used the instrument to excess. It speaks of an 'other', something artificial perhaps, or here, framed in that earlier 'jeopardy' key of E minor, something more deathly. This is the quintessence of ballerina delicacy. The Sugar Plum Fairy represents untouchable femininity or, for Petipa the music should sound akin to 'drops of water shooting out of fountains'. Tchaikovsky favours unresolved streams of dissonance. Flattened subdominant and dominant notes act as precarious lynchpins within the context. The Fairy and Prince's descending scale becomes a rather forlorn bass clarinet solo (then passed elsewhere in the woodwind) and the response to the dominant (itself rather short and sharp in appearance) is a stream of diminished chords in first and second position. Everything seems to hover around the tonic rather than endorsing it. After a stream of diminished and minor seventh arpeggios, the tune returns one octave higher and the dance ends with a rapid coda, highly reminiscent of the snowflake music.

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Sarah Lamb as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

The Magic of Fritz Wunderlich

2011-12-21T09:26:00.001Z

To be honest, I'm one of those people who cannot stand the queeny opera bore. 'Well, my dear, she wasn't Birgit Nilsson, now, was she?' Well, given that I was 3 when Nilsson retired, I can't testify. There's a sickness in endlessly comparing what is now with what had gone before. But what's really irritating is how right those heritage queens can be. Fritz Wunderlich is a case in point. The tenor had been dead for 15 years by the time I was born, so I really had no connection whatsoever with his life or career. But during an intensive period of work on Schubert, countless people urged me to listen to his recordings. And how addictive they are.

My latest dependency is on this re-released boxed set of opera highlights. Recorded not as complete recordings, but as bleeding chunks, they offered showcases for Wunderlich's talents. We are treated to his Pinkerton, Rodolfo, Don Ottavio and Lensky (among others). The icy tenderness of 'Che gelida manina' and Lieder-like 'Dalla sua pace' are pretty wonderful, but cannot prepare for the finest recording of Lensky's Act 2 aria on disc. Like Toby Spence in the recent ENO production of Eugene Onegin - see, modern singers can do it - Wunderlich perfectly expresses unfulfilled ambitions. This isn't someone ready for death, but a man on whom death has been forced by convention. The foggy murmur of Bayerisches Staatsorchester strings and an improvisatory clarinet solo weave around his entirely destroying rendition. Perfect. Click here to order a copy of the boxed set.

Day 21 - Variation I: Tarantella

2011-12-21T08:34:00.000Z

For the shortest day, the shortest track. As is customary in a classical pas de deux, both dancers perform a testing variation. Tchaikovsky, like Drigo and Minkus before him, tended to emphasise contrastingly masculine and feminine characteristics within those variations. Here Petipa asked for 48 bars in 6/8 time for the cavalier. Shifting into B minor, the movement is distinguished by a flowing dialogue between various instruments in turn. Given the showcase that Petipa intended (and Ivanov realised), with great leaps and turns for the Prince, Tchaikovsky obliges with a steady crescendo and the dialogue between the instruments creates a breathless counterpoint to the dance. The music moves into D major and Tchaikovsky introduces the tambourine - part and parcel of the southern Italian tarantella - but the tonic proper is insistent, the bass inflexible and the variation ends with a brusque cadence in B minor. It brilliantly sets up the Sugar Plum Fairy's variation in E minor.

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Steven McRae as The Prince in The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Through the eyes of a child…

2011-12-20T16:15:00.001Z

We grow up with The Nutcracker. We change. And it changes before our eyes. While writing my piece about the score for The Guardian, I needed to remind myself that it wasn’t all about death, E minor and eternity. So I took the opportunity to go and see the matinee on Sunday 11th December with my nephew in tow. He will be six in February, so he was probably one of the youngest members of the audience. Despite his age, he was completely gripped.

The magic for him began on entering the auditorium. ‘It’s so beautiful.’ That duck-egg blue ceiling, the descending lighting panels, the elegant sweep of the curtains and the sight of 2256 people all there to see the same thing are hugely impressive for a 5-year-old (and a 30-year-old). It reminded me of the first time I went to Covent Garden on 27 December 1988; I’ve been hooked ever since.

Act 1 of The Nutcracker prompted a series of questions. ‘Who’s he?’ ‘How do they make him fly?’ My stock response of, ‘It’s magic,’ was immediately frowned upon. Boys are pragmatic creatures; they need real answers. So as soon as the query was satisfied, my nephew resumed his concentrated pose. And you could see his eyes widen further when the Christmas tree shot up in size. ‘How do they do it? Is it as tall as my house?’

For a first time ballet goer, he was rather acute. He could spot the ‘mouse’ mime actions, he picked out the snowflake patterns in Ivanov’s choreography and when, in Act 2, Hans-Peter re-enacts the story of how he and Clara came to be in the Kingdom of Sweets, my nephew was the first to hear the recurrent musical motifs. Not bad for a kid who’d never heard the score or seen the ballet.

And it was those musical details that dominated my talk to a Year 12 group at Beaumont School in St Albans last week. It’s a seriously impressive local comprehensive. Admittedly it’s got a good catchment area in a predominantly middle class town, but they were, far and away, the sharpest 6th-form class I’d ever met. They really understood that while you could enjoy the ballet on my nephew’s terms – he later cited the death of the Mouse King as his favourite moment – there was perhaps a bit more going on.

We looked at the whole of the first act in the score, but we spent most of the time on Clara’s glorious pas de deux with Hans-Peter in the forest. That aching C major tune, replete with crunchy subdominant minor chords, invites further investigation. I asked the class for a list of adjectives. ‘Intense… emotional… romantic…’ And then one girl, hesitant at first, suggested it was about sexuality. ‘Is she growing up? Is Clara changing?’ Life reflected art, reflecting life. Perhaps The Nutcracker really is about eternity after all.

Day 20 - Pas de deux (Intrada)

2011-12-20T09:02:00.004Z

Building on the emotional impact of the Waltz of the Flowers, Petipa asked Tchaikovsky for an opening to the pas de deux that was 'intended to produce a colossal impression'. Obliging as ever, the Intrada is a passionate outpouring. True, we may be watching a Sugar Plum and a Cough Drop (as the original Prince's name translates), but Tchaikovsky couldn't resist suggesting something infinitely more profound. The melody may just be a descending scale - shades of Swan Lake again - but the harmony completely revolutionises that simple device; it becomes an elegiac melody. And although it starts in G major, it's not long before we've shifted to that pervasive key of E minor. This pas de deux mirrors Clara's first moments with Hans-Peter in the forest. The harp is present as it was there, but while Clara's longing found voice in an ascending melody, it is inverted here; a reflection shows things in reverse. The second section is less grandiose, with an oboe and clarinet duet representing the dancers on stage. But the next passage, marked 'incalzando' - increasing in both speed and warmth - is charged with emotion. A dominant pedal is firmly expectant of E minor and things are yet more candid in the final bars, as the brass takes over the melodic duties. The presence of a flattened seventh in the tonic proper (G major) moves us briefly into C minor, out of which Tchaikovsky snatches back the tonic. The Intrada ends triumphantly.

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Sergei Polunin as The Prince and Sarah Lamb as the Sugar Plum Fairy
in The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Day 19 - Waltz of the Flowers

2011-12-19T08:05:00.001Z

After the pithy dances of the Divertissement, Petipa wanted a Grande ballabile in the style of the waltz from The Sleeping Beauty. Tchaikovsky provided one of his most inspired compositions. Picking up the tonality from the previous movement, the A major introduction becomes a dominant preparation for the waltz. Thematic ideas are introduced here in a dialogue between woodwind and harp. The first waltz theme seems to be in equal four bar phrases, with the string accompaniment answered in kind by the horns. A three-bar phrase follows, with further two-bar phrases creating a wonderful sense of acceleration. The final five-bar phrase with a tumbling chromatic line leading to the cadence soon puts the breaks on. Throughout, Tchaikovsky keeps us guessing by alternating the textures and lengths of phrases (unlike the repeated four-bar waltz themes of Johann Strauss II). A second descending theme is delivered passionately on the strings in a constant ebb-and-flow between music and emotion. At one point, Tchaikovsky shifts into B minor. While the initial oboe melody manages to evade its grasp, the cellos and violas are caught and become more outspoken in their 'Pathétique' tones. Like the 'Waltz of the Snowflakes' in the first act, which rocked between E minor and its relative major, the 'Waltz of the Flowers' vacillates between tonic and its relative minor. The mirror images between the first and second acts become clearer all the time. As before, however, Tchaikovsky is careful not to overcloud our view and, after a brief hemiola, we're back to the original theme. The final passages are delivered with great zeal, as the strings sail up to a passionate counter-melody and the brass come to the fore. The waltz ends with a dazzling sequence of hemiolas, quickening the harmonic pace right up to the final cadence.

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Elizabeth Harrod as Clara, Alastair Marriott as Drosselmeyer and Artists of the Royal Ballet
In the Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Václav Havel (1936-2011) R.I.P.

2011-12-19T06:10:00.000Z

The poet-playwright-president Václav Havel has died. A thorn in the Soviets' side, a cheerleader for democracy and a self-effacing hero for Czechoslovakia, he was, more or less, the picture of what our leaders should be. While the great Milan Kundera felt it necessary to distance himself from Havel during the collapse of communism - seemingly unable to differentiate between the great ideal and the terrible reality - Havel came to power when his country needed him most. You can read The Guardian's obituary of Havel here.

Last night, before a performance of Rusalka at the National Theatre in Prague, the Artistic Director Ondřej Černý appeared on stage to deliver these words of tribute:

Václav Havel has died. The greatest spiritual authority of our young democracy has left us for ever. An extraordinary human, a true citizen, a great politician, a splendid playwright. Undoubtedly the greatest figure this country has had since the time of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. One it has given to the world. His bust, unveiled at the National Theatre on this anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, on 17 November, will for ever remind us of his unpretentious yet magnificent legacy. And serve as a constant source of inspiration in our lives. Now it is up to us.

Day 18 - Mother Gigogne

2011-12-18T09:47:00.003Z

Many productions cut this number, depicting the legendary Mère Gigogne. She is usually called Mother Ginger in English, though the name translates as 'nesting', not unlike a matryoshka doll. She has also been called Mère Cicogne, the French for stork, emphasising her baby-carrying role. Whether ginger, nesting or stork, Petipa intended a link with the character from the marionette theatre tradition, instantly recognisable by the 32 children who burst out from under her voluminous skirt. He wanted a ternary form dance from Tchaikovsky where a 'leisurely and very accented' 2/4 section moves into a slower 3/4; the 2/4 then returns 'but in a somewhat faster tempo'. This is a French-dance through-and-through and the composer employed the folk tune 'Giroflé-Giroflá' for his theme in the first section. As with the majority of the dances in the Divertissement, the phrasing is relatively equal and the harmonic language moves seamlessly between tonic and dominant. However, the textures are yet brighter with an excited semiquaver accompaniment running through the violas and clarinets. Thrown accents in the tutti repeat of the theme give rhythmic variety before arriving at the second section. Tchaikovsky settles into a bouncing 6/8 and then the ferocious 2/4 returns with even more jagged syncopations. It's a great shame that many modern productions do not use this music, as it represents Tchaikovsky at his most gregarious.

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Ricardo Cervera as Hans Peter (in the Russian Dance)
In the Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Tchaikovsky's 'In Memoriam'

2011-12-17T10:01:00.002Z

There's always something more lurking beneath the surface. There must be some reason, other than me being emotionally unstable, that I cry every time I see The Nutcracker. Those vertiginous harp cadenzas, the longing sigh of Clara's pas de deux with Hans-Peter and the brooding B minor in the cellos during the Waltz of the Flowers get me every time. But Tchaikovsky initially loathed the idea of the ballet and found it impossible to commit any musical thoughts to paper. But something radically changed and, like The Queen of Spades and the 'Pathétique' Symphony, the shadow of death hangs over the score. While it's important not to forget the surface, Tchaikovsky's soaring melodies demand further attention.

It's the basis of my article in the Review section of today's Guardian. You can read it on page 15 of the review section. Or you can click here to read it online.

Day 17 - Dance of the Reed Pipes

2011-12-17T09:43:00.005Z

Although the Dance of the Reed Pipes has no expressed national sentiment, Petipa asked Tchaikovsky for a Polka - a Czech 2/4 dance. It was to for up to 96 bars, with girls 'playing on little fifes made of reed, both ends of which are stopped with a piece of gold-beater's skin'. Called Mirlitons in French these were folk instruments prevalent in Central Europe. Petipa may have intended to continue the Slavic theme in these Divertissements. Whatever the local colour, Tchaikovsky responds with great delicacy. Pizzicato strings support the flutes' two-bar-phrased tune, which spans longer chromatic stretches towards cadences. The movement has a broader harmonic palate and the cor anglais gives a melancholic touch. As ever, these shadows are short-lived and the melody returns with violins providing a bouncing counter-melody. The brass dominate the second section, sitting uneasily in F# minor (an implied dominant of the relative minor of B minor). It feels that the music will resolve into B minor proper, but Tchaikovsky steers us back into D major for an elegant restatement of the tune. Far from the frenetic polkas of Dvořák or Strauss, this is a very elegant dance.

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Iohna Loots as Clara and Artists of the Royal Ballet in The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Day 16 - Russian Dance

2011-12-16T07:37:00.003Z

Tchaikovsky is back closer to home with the final national dance in the sequence. The Trepak - a rapid hop in 2/4 time - was danced by the Cossack tribe predominant in the Ukraine. It is a men-only dance and Ivanov's choreography mimics the famous prisiadka technique, where the men kick out their legs from a squatting position. This is one of Tchaikovsky's most exuberant movements, framed in a bright G major. It has breathless phrases, first two 2-bar bursts, followed by a 4-bar build towards the cadence point. The theme is then repeated by the whole orchestra before moving into a second section in the dominant. Scurrying runs in the lower strings (including the unusually frisky double basses) give a wonderful burst of energy. And there's an excited swing to the syncopated to-and-fro before the repeat. Tchaikovsky finally runs away with a bold stringendo.

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Iohna Loots as Clara, Ricardo Cervera as the Nephew, Paul Kay and Michael Stojko
in the Russian Dance of The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Day 15 - Chinese Dance

2011-12-15T08:40:00.003Z

Tchaikovsky was then asked to provide a dance 'in the Chinese taste' representing tea, thereby going deeper into the Asian continent. For the 'European' Russians of St. Petersburg, the far reaches of that enormous landmass on which they were perched provided a strange 'other' in an already exotic culture. This is a humorous movement, with all the chinoiserie you could expect - pentatonic scales and filigree decoration. But having already written two triple-time dances, Tchaikovsky ignored Petipa's instructions for a third and cut his 48-bar count down to 32. The dance is like a whistling kettle, with a bassoon bass pattern and trilling flute solo. Pizzicato strings add to the 'too hot to handle' tone before the flute plays its theme again, now in inversion. Throughout the dance, Tchaikovsky keeps to equal two bar phrases, providing a solid basis for Ivanov's slapstick choreography.

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Iohna Loots as Clara and Artists of The Royal Ballet in the Chinese Dance in The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Day 14 - Arabian Dance

2011-12-14T12:45:00.002Z

For his next entertainment, Drosselmeyer conjures the exotic perfumes and coffee of Arabia. Tchaikovsky obliges with sultry tones. Petipa had asked for 24 to 32 bars of 'charming and voluptuous music'; the composer created 102 bars of wonderfully erotic music. The rocking accompaniment is played by muted strings, on top of which the woodwind and then upper strings weave their melodies. While the other national dances are fast and foursquare, this movement sounds a note of eerie danger in the Kingdom of Sweets. Like Strauss's Salome and just over a decade avant la lettre, Tchaikovsky's Araby is the stuff of high-Orientalist imagination. The dance is all suggestion, texture and orchestration. Harmonically, it's relative static, with the G-D drone continuing throughout. The melody is coloured by 'Arabic' ornaments and reaches more passionate heights in the middle section. But like many of Drosselmeyer's tricks, this is the stuff of consummate artifice.

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Laura McCulloch, Ryoichi Hirano and Johannes Stepanek in the Arabian Dance
in The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Day 13 - Spanish Dance

2011-12-13T10:34:00.000Z

And so begin the entertainments for Clara and Hans Peter in the Kingdom of Sweets. First up, a Spanish Dance representing Chocolate. Tchaikovsky had written a similar set of Divertissements in the third act of Swan Lake (albeit without the culinary links), so Petipa needed to give very few instructions, just 'in 3/4 from 64 to 80 bars'. Here, Tchaikovsky's Iberian showpiece is less agressive than in the earlier ballet, with a Sarabande-like emphasis on the second beat. It is cast in relatively simple terms, rocking between the tonic (E flat major) and the dominant. A cheeky trumpet tune, with a counter melody in the clarinet (evoking hot chocolate), gives way to a tutti statement of the initial theme. Tchaikovsky uses the 'local colour' of castanets and a second theme is played by the strings (related in shape to the original trumpet melody). That melody returns in thirds before a chirruping plagal cadence.

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Artists of The Royal Ballet in the Spanish Dance
in The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Tchaikovsky's Harmonic Language

2011-12-12T10:55:00.001Z

Throughout this month's daily posts on the music of The Nutcracker, I've pinpointed Tchaikovsky's various harmonic tricks. This is not the music of the everyday and the Russian composer works hard to underline the extraordinary nature of his tale. While the overture echoed standard harmonic practice, with perfect cadences (moving from the dominant - chord V - to the tonic - chord I) and neat modulations from tonic to dominant and back again, the rest of the score plays faster and looser within those parameters. One of the main ways in which Tchaikovsky colours his musical canvas is by favouring the relative minor (sharing the same key signature as the major - G major and E minor for instance) rather than the dominant as a secondary key centre. It happens all over the score, but one particularly noticeable is in the middle of the Waltz of the Flowers. Although performed at the height of the Sugar Plum Fairy's Act 2 festivities, this heart-on-sleeve passage comes across as particularly forlorn. The waltz is in D major, but this theme is in B minor, the tonality that dominates Swan Lake and the 'Pathétique' Symphony. While the dominant has a musical logic, the relative minor has a subtler flavour and casts its own melancholic shadow.

Even within major tonalities, Tchaikovsky alters the mood with the use of certain chords. He frequently uses the flattened submediant (the sixth note in the scale, but flattened by a semitone). In Clara and the Nutcracker this creates a really dazzling final cadence as the Christmas tree reaches its full height.

The proximity to the dominant, which would be E major here, creates one level of surprise. The second is that F major isn't part of A major. It's a chromatic and somewhat alien harmony within the overall tonal structure of this part and implies some kind of mediant transition (such as are prevalent in Tchaikovsky's symphonies and the music of Brahms). It's like the glitter that falls from the fly tower in the Royal Opera House's production. Something extraordinary is happening on stage and in the score.

Within the 'In the Pine Forest' movement, Tchaikovsky opts for a darker harmonic surprise. He settles on a minor subdominant. We're in C major here and the normal subdominant would be F major. If there was a cadence from that back to the tonic it would be a plagal cadence, like a standard 'Amen'. But the flattened of the A natural in that F major chord to A flat makes it all the more poignant. It's a passing colour at first, followed by a perfect cadence with a consoling 4-3 suspension (in bar 10).

You'll note that F minor is quite closely related to A flat major (the triad shares two notes - A flat and C natural). At the climax of Clara's dance with Hans Peter, that harmony gives the final cadence a newly heightened quality. It's passionate, almost erotic. And here it's coloured by an even more extreme F sharp in the bass (following by the chord II7b, Ic, V7(9) and I).

Rather than proffering foursquare harmonic formulas in the ballet, Tchaikovsky constantly surprises. These are just a few examples of his sound world and how, through various chromatic sleights of hand, he grabs our attention. And the more you listen, the more you realise that the score has an other worldly quality.

Day 12 - Clara and the Prince

2011-12-12T09:48:00.001Z

By the time that Clara and Hans Peter arrive in the Kingdom of Sweets, Marius Petipa has gone into overdrive describing its vistas and the Sugar Plum Fairy's retenue. The great candied Princess is announced by the celesta, her signature instrument. Tchaikovsky found this new type of keyboard glockenspiel when he was in Paris in 1891 and employed the machine as soon as he could. It was the perfect sound to describe sublime artifice (coupled with a flutter-tongue technique on the flutes and piccolo). Although Ernest Chausson had used the celesta in his 1888 composition La tempête, Tchaikovsky was the first to bring it to Russia. As Clara and Hans Peter arrive, the music begins to reverse its modulations. Having moved from C major into E major (via E minor) at the end of the first act, Tchaikovsky shifts back into C major during this passage. The Sugar Plum Fairy and Prince approach and a solemn descending motif appears on the bassoons, trombones and lower strings. A swift 6/8 dance comes next, teetering on the edge of E minor and then into A minor. This introduces Hans Peter's recollections of what occurred in act one. The battle music returns in ever more vicious tones, as he mimes the events to the Sugar Plum Fairy. But after a glorious surging run in the strings, a lyrical theme tells of Clara's triumph, shifting through A flat major to E flat major (all the time coloured by flattened subdominant harmonies). In the original scenario, the Sugar Plum Fairy brings out a table of preserves for the courageous pair. Tchaikovsky seems to move away from E flat, only to confirm the tonality as we prepare for the various national divertissements.

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Iohna Loots as Clara and Ricardo Cervera as the Nephew
in The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Day 11 - The Kingdom of Sweets

2011-12-11T09:30:00.001Z

After the emotional highs of the first act, Act 2 begins in a more sober fashion. Still in E major (the key in which we left the Land of Snow), Tchaikovsky conjures an ululating soundscape. Petipa described the scene in detailed terms: it was to have 'the most fantastic décor', with gold and silver everywhere; and 'at the back of the stage fountains gushing lemonade, orangeade, orgeat [a French barley water], and currant syrup.' Petipa's only specific request was that Tchaikovsky make his music grandiose as the curtain rises. This passage is relatively straightforward harmonically speaking. The risk of the previous act has dissolved into a gentle to-and-fro between tonic and dominant. The orchestrations are, however, equally glittering. And when the curtain rises (during a harp cadenza) the charming melody is interspersed with giggling runs in the piccolo. When chromaticism does embellish that simpler palate, it is to indicate excitement (in the vein of Aurora's arrival in The Sleeping Beauty). With Rossini-like precision, Tchaikovsky builds to the arrival of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Her unique celesta sparkles on the surface, with the melody now played in harmonics by three violins. Clara's hesitation is expressed in the final cadence's complex resolution through another flattened submediant chord (this time with an added seventh), before the music rests in E major. Clara is home.

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Artists of The Royal Ballet in The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

A late muse

2011-12-10T12:29:00.001Z

As well as Tchaikovsky, I've been spending the week with Mozart and Brahms. The 18th Austrian master has beguiled me with his piano sonatas... like his symphonies they act as as biography in music, bearing the hallmarks of location, time and utility. Christian Blackshaw starts a journey through the lot at Wigmore in January. And then Brahms took over. I've been writing liner notes for a new recording of the F minor Piano Quintet - an ambitious and often aggressive work - and the Clarinet Quintet. Richard Mühlfeld (pictured left) must have been an extraordinary musician. In 1891, when he and Brahms met, the German-born composer wrote not only this great autumnal quintet - gently rocking between major and minor tonalities - but also the trio. So good was their working relationship that Brahms not only wrote two sonatas for Mühlfeld, but he gave the clarinettist all the royalties from performances of the works written for him, as well as his pianist's fee whenever they performed the pieces together. After publication, Brahms handed over the manuscripts of both sonatas. Oh to have heard him play...

The Best of 2011... in Films

2011-12-10T10:18:00.001Z

1. Weekend directed by Andrew Haigh

The great gay film of the decade. Reality and tenderness combined. And who knew that Nottingham could look so serene?

2. Wuthering Heights directed by Andrea Arnold

Narrative liberties gave birth to the moodiest but most accurate distillation of this book on film. Terrific performances and eye-widening shots of a very bleak Yorkshire.

3. Michael directed by Markus Schleinzer

Hardly the comfort choice, this sober look at imprisonment and paedophilia confirmed Austria's place on the feel-bad stage. But its pacing and punch were second to none this year.

4. The King's Speech directed by Tom Hooper

The best use of Beethoven in film and a surprisingly tender portrayal of the weight of responsibility. Colin Firth gets stronger film by film, while Geoffrey Rush managed to contain himself and give the performance of his career.

5. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy directed by Tomas Alfredson

Never once pandering to blockbuster signposting or moralising, Alfedson's film version of le Carré's classic offered a strong alternative to the BBC originals. Casting Firth made the guessing game a little obvious, but the drama never dimmed.

6. The Dirk Bogarde Season at the BFI

Loved and loathed in equal measure, Bogarde nevertheless made some seriously impressive films. While Death in Venice will always dominate, the ever-contemporary Victim and Accident were the highlights of the season.

7. Loose Canons directed by Ferzan Ozpetek

A charming dose of Italian sunshine from Italian-Turkish director Ferzan Ozpetek.

8. Die Jungs vom Bahnhof Zoo directed by Rosa von Praunheim

Documentary at its most incisive. Exposing the bitter world of underaged male prostitution in Berlin and the impact on the lives of those who buy and sell.

9. Deep Blue Sea directed by Terence Davies

The mainstream polish of this adaptation puts it outside the best of Davies, but the performances are terrific and Davies is the master storyteller of post-War repression.

10. Mahler auf der Couch directed by Percy and Felix Adlon

On screen for the first time in the UK (at the Jewish Film Festival), this is a highly intelligent composer film. Eschewing the excesses of the late Ken Russell, the Adlons clearly know their subject.

The Christmas Turkey

Just one look at Spielberg's computer generated Tintin told me to steer clear.

The Best of 2011... in Art and Exhibitions

2011-12-10T09:41:00.001Z

1. Richter at Tate Modern

Variety and virtuosity in one artist. Public commentary and private tenderness... he really is the best alive today. The exhibition is running until 8 January. Go now.

2. Adolf Loos at RIBA

Incredible insight into the development and workings of this radical architect. The RIBA collections are an untapped resource. Beautifully presented, though under-celebrated.

3. Watercolour at Tate Britain

A wonderful sweep across a genre. Although recent work would claim radicalism, the most daring pictures came from the English romantics.

4. The Birth of Modern at the Neue Galerie

Popping over the Atlantic to relish cross-cultural display. Britain may have great spaces and world-class collections but we segregate our culture. This exhibition placed the art and architecture in the context of thought, literature and music. It proves to be a much more invigorating experience. British curators, take not.

5. Islamic Art at the Kunsthistorisches Museum

This exhibition of rarities from a Kuwait collection underlined how much still awaits discovery in the Middle East. Exquisite artistry and artefacts.

6. The reopening of the Great Midland Hotel

After years of neglect it is wonderful to see George Gilbert Scott's masterpiece back in use as a hotel. Although the decoration needs the patina of time, it is a triumphant resurrection.

7. Art nouveau in Brussels

One of the great open-air museums... wandering through the suburb of St Gilles with Horta, Brunfaut and Hamesse. Vision and change.

8. The Magritte Museum in Brussels

A museum dedicated to the king of Belgian art. Superb lay-out and lighting, with contextual displays and, of course, Magritte's dizzying vision.

9. The Cult of Beauty at the V&A

The closest we came to a cross-cultural exhibition in the UK. However glorious the content, it was cramped and lacked the finesse of last year's Diaghilev.

10. Gauguin at Tate Modern

Included for its two contextual rooms. Gauguin is an artist of wavering quality, but the best was terrific.

The Christmas Turkey

The National Gallery's approach to opening the Leonardo exhibition. Why not run it through the night and capitalise on the success, rather than letting eBay entrepreneurs cash in.

The Best of 2011... in Books

2011-12-10T08:59:00.001Z

1. Alibis by André Aciman (FSG)

When has a book of essays ever embraced so much? References to lavender and the Langsamer Satz are just part and parcel of Aciman's poetic prose.

2. The End by Ian Kershaw (Allen Lane)

The German perspective in the last year of the Nazi regime. The troops may have be dying on the front, but the mechanism and machinations of the Nazi state continued to roll. Brilliant narrative history.

3. Maybe This Time by Alois Hotschnig (Peirene)

A late entry on the list. Shape shifting storytelling. Chilling but wonderful.

4. A Singer's Notebook by Ian Bostridge (Faber)
I've become less convinced by Bostridge as a singer as time goes on - though he was extraordinary in the LSO's War Requiem in October - but he's an increasingly wonderful writer. The Standpoint columns in this collection are eminently readable.

5. The Mahler Album (Abrams)
Every known photograph and picture of the great man. The cult of celebrity in all its glory.

6. Across the Land and the Water: Selected Poems 1964-2001 by W.G. Sebald (Hamish Hamilton)
The death of Sebald in 2001 was a horrendous loss to contemporary writing. But as some of the byways of his output reach English translation for the first time, it's like he's still here. These poems are extraordinary, as you'd expect.

7. Gustav Mahler by Jens Malte Fischer (Yale)
Although de la Grange's four volume biography is a must-have, Fischer places his protagonist in greater context. And it's a really good read.

8. A Wicked Company by Philipp Blom (Basic Books)
The skill of a narrative historian is to take you into familiar terrain and render it unfamiliar but graspable. Blom is the master of the historical kaleidoscope. Urgent and personal, his style draws you deftly through the French 18th century and its incredible philosophers.

9. By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham (FSG)
Death in Venice Revisited. The emotional and cultural stagnation of our world captured in prose. A great read.

10. Neue Cuisine by Kurt Gutenbrunner (Rizzoli)
An Austrian chef, with a New York food empire. Yet for all Gutenbrunner's success, this is a touching and personal volume. Shades of Nigel Slater and beautifully illustrated with pictures from the Neue Galerie collection.

The Christmas Turkey
Jeffrey Deaver's Carte Blanche. The simpleton's James Bond.

The Best of 2011... in Recorded Music

2011-12-10T08:35:00.001Z

1. Mahler 9 with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra (Accentus on DVD)

After a recent slew of disappointing Mahler 9s - Norrington, Salonen, Zinman, Gergiev - this is a masterclass. No hype here. Abbado rules.

2. Complete Beethoven Symphonies with the Gewandhausorchester (Decca)

Can a recording live up to the live experience? Not quite. But there is some seriously brilliant playing on this set. It's infectious and I haven't been able to turn it off.

3. Passion and Resurrection with Polyphony (Hyperion)

Ēriks Ešenvalds Passiontide cantata dominated the early part of my year. Luscious and controlled singing from Polyphony and a seriously impressive Carolyn Sampson make for the most moving disc of 2011. Sublime.

4. Schubert Piano Works with Paul Lewis (Harmonia Mundi)

Although Lewis impressed at Wigmore Hall in June, I wasn't wowed. But in the privacy of the recording studio, Lewis takes wing. The schizophrenic Drei Klavierstücke are benchmark performances.

5. Schwanengesang with Mark Padmore and Paul Lewis (Harmonia Mundi)

'Der Doppelgänger' is my track of the year. The pugnacity of the dynamics and Padmore's fevered performance are indicative of this hugely impressive disc. I hope Padmore and Lewis continue to perform and record together. Their Schubert cycles are a wonder.

6. Brahms via Schoenberg with the Berliner Philharmoniker (EMI)

Rattle has recorded Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1 before. His Birmingham performance is cerebral and committed. But placed next to Schoenberg's orchestration of Brahms's Piano Quartet, the work takes on a beguiling post-Romantic sheen in Berlin. Glorious playing, as you'd expect.

7. Brahms Symphonies with the Tonhalle (RCA)

Like Chailly's Beethoven or Haitink's Brahms at the Proms, Zinman polishes these symphonies and they come up gleaming. The Tonhalle strings may not quite have the warmth you want and the 2nd Symphony is forced, but 1, 3 and 4 are exemplary.

8. Mahler 3 with the Bamberger Symphoniker (Tudor)

While 'bigger' orchestras bulldoze their way through Mahler, Nott's Bavarian band create respectful and revelatory new discs. This 3 is no exception. If you're looking for a new Mahler set, you've found it.

9. Strauss Waltzes with the Philharmonics (Accentus)

Kaffeehaus music shouldn't be this good. Although the camera work lacks imagination (not a consideration for 8 of the other choices here), the performances are winning. Real abandon and colour brings these Second Viennese School arrangements zinging to life.

10. Complete Wolf Lieder - Vol. 1 (Stone Records)

As part of the Oxford Lieder Festival, Artistic Director Sholto Kynoch has embarked on the first complete Wolf recording project. The singing and highly sympathetic accompaniment on this first disc promises much.

The Christmas Turkey

There is genuinely no disc that hit my desk that really exasperated this year and many more could have been included in a top 20 list.

The Best of 2011... in Live Music

2011-12-10T08:10:00.001Z

1. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at Glyndebourne

An emotional body-blow. Gerald Finley's Sachs was the performance of the year, with Johannes Martin Kränzle's Beckmesser an immediate second. David McVicar's production was a total treat. No posturing, no polemic, just honest storytelling with the power to wow. As Eva placed a crown of flowers on Sachs's head in the final bars, I was helpless.

2. The Complete Beethoven with the Gewandhausorchester

Masterpieces played by a masterclass orchestra. Like McVicar's Meistersinger, Chailly eschewed point-scoring to deliver fresh insightful performances. The orchestra of the year.

3. Mahler 4 with the Berliner Philharmoniker

Rattle's troupe came to London with two Mahler symphonies, Stravinsky and Schubert in tow. Although each concert was exemplary, their Mahler 4 was the most sincere. The finale's claim that 'Kein' Musik ist ja nicht auf Erden' [no music on earth compares with ours] is clearly the orchestra's maxim.

4. Il trittico at the Royal Opera House

Again, Antonio Pappano proved that Puccini is what he does best. A brutal Il tabarro and genuinely funny Gianni Schicchi were to be expected. But the clincher was the triptych's searing Suor Angelica. Richard Jones trod a brilliant middle line between sentiment and cynicism.

5. Brahms 4 with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at the Proms

Bernard Haitink made you feel that the finale of Brahms 4 was the beginning of modernism. Torrid but beautiful, this was extraordinary playing. The best of the 2011 Proms.

6. Miah Persson at the Oxford Lieder Festival

Persson was the highlight of Glyndebourne's Don Giovanni but it was the clarity of communication in her Oxford Lieder Festival recital that really wowed.

7. Mahler 1 with the Budapest Festival Orchestra at the Proms

Ivan Fischer's band came a whisker away from being my Proms highlight. After their hell-bound Liszt, this Mahler 1 moved from pacific heights to dejected lows with daring colour and panache.

8. Pelléas et Mélisande at the Barbican

Natalie Dessay gave us a 40th birthday present... her husband Laurent Naouri as Golaud. And with Simon Keenlyside as her ardent lover this was a seriously impressive semi-staged performance.

9. Salome at the Salzburg Easter Festival

Although Stefan Herheim's production was decidedly perverse, there were musical joys aplenty. Emily Magee combined the 16-year-old coquette with Wagnerian vocal chops while Stig Andersen charted Herod's gruelling lines with Lieder-isch lightness of touch. The Berliner Philharmoniker, again, proved perfect.

10. Roderick Williams at Wigmore Hall

Communication and candour is key in Lieder. And Roderick Williams has it in bucket-loads. You'll be able to relish his Schumann Kerner Lieder next year when the concert is released on Wigmore Hall Live.

The Christmas Turkey

Roger Norrington's abusive performance of Mahler 9 at the Proms. Proving a point, scratching his nose, picking his ears and ruining one of the great masterpieces of all time.

The Best of 2011

2011-12-10T08:02:00.001Z

The tree will soon be trimmed, so the papers must be filling with the year in review. And it's been a good one. There have been a few cultural casualties along the way and over-hyping. Sadly, reduced funding has led to more conservative schedules, but there are a bevy of highlights... this is a thoroughly Entartete Musik list. Nearly everything in the list has been featured and/or reviewed on the blog over the course of the year. There are notable absences and I've suggested a Christmas Turkey for each category.

So here it is... the best of 2011 in Live Music, Recorded Music, Books, Art and Exhibitions and Film.

Day 10 - Waltz of the Snowflakes

2011-12-10T07:43:00.001Z

‘Snow is falling,’ Petipa said, ‘Suddenly thick, light, white snowflakes begin to move’. Although dainty and pretty, Tchaikovsky’s choice of E minor here (an easy but significant slide from the previous C major) underlines the pervasive tension in the score. And although it settles into a waltz, the metre and harmony are similarly ambiguous. Hushed string chords introduce the waltz proper, which is built over an unstable accompaniment, complete with hemiola (the feeling of two in the bar in a 3/4 context). A growl of brass melts into a pizzicato dance followed by an affecting wordless children’s chorus in the relative major. There’s a brief section in B minor before the waltz returns with the voices. But the more aggressive streak comes to the surface in what Petipa described as a ‘snowball’ broken apart by a gust of wind. The first waltz concludes with another forceful hemiola and a double harp cadenza. The snow begins to fall ‘in thick flakes […] illuminated by electricity’. And rather than the second whirling waltz that Petipa requested, Tchaikovsky goes into a rapid 2/4 dance as the snowflakes begin to charge. Although the children’s voices return, they cannot restore the relative major; E minor is resolute. Suddenly, the music gives way, there is a rising bass line and the first act ends in a dazzling E major. Jeopardy has turned to joy and Clara and Hans-Peter glide off to the Kingdom of Sweets.

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Artists of The Royal Ballet in The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Day 9 - In the Pine Forest

2011-12-09T07:46:00.001Z

Tchaikovsky composed one of his most heartfelt melodies for the moment when ‘the Nutcracker turns into an enchanting prince’. Cushioned by two arpeggiating harps, this new theme is pregnant with hope. Occasionally it veers towards that 'jeopardy' key of E minor, but continues growing nonetheless. The melody (played first on the cor anglais) is given a further emotional tug by the use of an F minor chord (or a related diminished chord two - as Irving Berlin used in White Christmas) placed over a tonic pedal; it creates a real ‘crunch’ harmony. Clara is coming to terms with her feelings for Hans-Peter - Drosselmeyer’s nephew - who has been released from the Nutcracker. Sighing falls of a fifth and a slow but steady crescendo create an impression of burgeoning sexuality. Here, Tchaikovsky shrugs off the claims of ‘children’s ballet’. Echoing the C major tonality of her parents at the party, Clara is becoming an adult. The theme grows and grows until it is joined by a thrilling counter melody – comprised of a descending scale (a motif that will come to the fore in the second act) – and an enormous final cadence using an expressive flattened submediant (based on an A flat major chord within a C major context). Suddenly, after this great outburst, Clara and Hans-Peter are surrounded by snow.

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Ludovic Ondiviela as Hans-Peter and Elizabeth Harrod as Clara
in The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Day 8 - The Battle

2011-12-08T07:52:00.001Z

Tchaikovsky doesn’t let the paint dry on that sparkling cadence before the ominous scratches start again. A battle has broken out between the mice and Fritz's toy soldiers, who are led by the Nutcracker (now raised to human height). Petipa was incredibly detailed about how he wanted the fight to unfold. Two bars for a sentry, two bars of silence, a gunshot, two bars of fright and further sections for awakening, alarms and getting into formation. From these notes Tchaikovsky wrote a fluid musical drama, moving through that ‘jeopardy’ key of E minor (pitted as far away from the home key of B flat major as possible) into a highly chromatic D minor and finally A minor. This tonal impermanence mirrors the danger of the situation. It may be a toy battle, but the squally oboes, boom of the tam tam and tremelando strings are truly ominous. You can hear a premonition of Shostakovich in the melée. The Mouse King's arrival is announced by an ugly braying fanfare. He weakens the Nutcracker's attack. The battle builds until we hear the moment when Clara, seizing her opportunity, hits the Mouse King over the head with her slipper. He falls, the mice disappear and the music slumps into that ‘adult’ key of C major.

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Artists of The Royal Ballet in The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Reliable Narrator

2011-12-07T14:00:00.001Z

Alois Hotschnig is a writer with a vivid eye. Everything in Maybe This Time appears to be normal. Scenes are recognisable. The narrator has a familiar voice. It could well be one of us. But over the course these short narratives, the perspective slowly changes, reality slips away and a more bewildering actuality begins to emerge. Like E.T.A. Hoffmann seen through a prism of Michael Haneke, these tales constantly surprise.

It would be easy to equate Hotschnig's false realities with a distrust of his country. And while there are flashes of local colour and pervasive Gemütlichkeit, the malaise is a global one. Our individuality is eroded every day and these stories are ones in which the subject and the object constantly merge. The perception of who controls the narrative in 'The Same Silence, the Same Noise' is a case in point. A man watches and reports on his neighbours' every move. Convinced that they're ignoring him, he becomes obsessed. Slowly his life fuses with theirs. But while he watches them, we read about him. Whose privacy is really invaded?

Similar issues arise in 'Then a Door Opens and Swings Shut'. An old lady keeps a collection of dolls, but when Karl visits he realises that all the toys represent people from the area. Most chillingly, he is presented with a toy version of himself. The elision of the storyteller and the events he tells become one and the same thing. Reality may be the springboard to these stories but the destination is always unsure. In 'The Beginning of Something' the narrator addresses the dichotomy.

Into whose story had I fallen, I wondered. The story had as little do with me as the smell. Just as I didn't fit here, so nothing here fit me, except for the notes, and I had no idea what I should do with them. I had covered them like everything else. The sentences were not to be trusted.

Sentences are the basis of Hotschnig's art. He listens to the conversations around him, filling notebooks with mundane fragments. The impulse for every bit of story telling is found in the everyday. And what is so marvellous about this new publication is that Tess Lewis's English translation feels that instant and fresh. For texts that surprise at every single turn, you need to cling to the translation's linguistic clarity. But what happens within those readable paragraphs is the stuff of nightmare. This is bargain basement horror. Hotschnig does something much more daring; he changes our perception of reality. Click here to order a copy.

Day 7 - Clara and the Nutcracker

2011-12-07T07:59:00.001Z

The guests begin to leave. Clara’s lullaby for the Nutcracker – still in C major – dominates, now accompanied by harp and triangle. It is given further emotional clout when heard on a lone cor anglais against a shiver of strings. Slowly but surely the house is closed up for the night. A sudden cadential shift through E major within the overriding C major tonality gives Clara’s seemingly childish attachment to the doll broader significance. These evocative mediant and submediant cadences appear throughout the score; clearly, traditional resolutions will not do. All is still in the house, though Tchaikovsky resolutely avoids settling on the root position chord. A shift through various tonal centres – first A flat major – confirms that restlessness in what Petipa described as ‘mysterious and tender music’. Harp glissandi and trilling woodwind accompany Clara’s return downstairs. She has come to reclaim her Nutcracker. But the more malevolent murmurs we heard throughout the party scene come home to roost in the following musical landscape. The clock strikes midnight and Clara’s childhood home begins to change. She can hear mice in the skirting boards – depicted in vivid colours. But their scratchy music soon dissolves into a more longing theme. Initially insecure, the theme builds through the orchestra as the Christmas tree grows and grows in ‘48 bars of fantastic music with a grandiose crescendo’. This is not just the music of Christmas fantasy; we witness Clara herself change through its great swathes of searching strings. Eventually finding its home in A major, the Christmas tree reaches full height with a dazzling final cadence.

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Gary Avis as Drosselmeyer in The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Things Turn Out Differently

2011-12-06T08:01:00.001Z

Until recently, Walter Arlen was a totally unknown quantity… at least in Vienna, the city of his birth. Kicked out by the Nazis after the Anschluß, Arlen fled to America where he became the pupil of the composer Roy Harris. Arlen eventually settled in Los Angeles, then a hub for Central Europeans in exile. He studied at UCLA and later worked as a musical academic at Loyola Marymount University. But the daily grind couldn't match his talent and every evening he would go home to work on his music (some of which he'd brought from Vienna). In among this emerging body of work was a collection of striking songs.

Bridging the gap between the Lieder tradition of his homeland and the desiccated beauty of Ives, Barber and Copland, these songs are the music of exile. They have no geography; their texts, from the Song of Songs, Shakespeare, St John of the Cross, Rilke and Miłosz, speak of diverse taste as much as of Arlen's longings. But rather than sharing his feelings of displacement, Arlen hid the songs in a drawer. Only Marni Nixon, the 'voice' of The King and I, West Side Story and My Fair Lady, was allowed to sing them.

A chance meeting in 2005 between Arlen and the record producer Michael Haas finally brought this extraordinary music out of hiding. Michael has worked for years to re-establish repertoire forgotten or lost in the atrocities of the Nazi period. And his multi-award winning Entartete Musik series on Decca was the inspiration for the title of this blog. With the financial support of the Vienna-based exil.arte, Christian Immler, Rebecca Nelsen (pictured above with Arlen) and Danny Driver recorded a selection of these 'hidden' songs in July and August 2010. The disc was released on the Gramola label last month in Vienna, launched at a special ceremony at the Volkstheater.

The city that rejected Arlen in its blackest period is welcoming him back; restitution clearly comes in many forms. There's now a square named after him in the district of Ottakring, where Arlen's family had its department store Warenhaus Dichter (aryanised after the Anschluß). Blind, physically frail, but mentally pin-sharp, the 90-year-old Arlen return to Vienna for the recording sessions. Unable to read his scores, Arlen was hearing many of them for the first time. Correcting harmonies, suggesting weightings within chords, Arlen hadn't forgotten a thing. And I sat in the room overlooking the Belvedere Palace gardens as soprano Rebecca Nelsen began to sing; Arlen was transfixed. His music has returned to at least one of its homes. Click here to order a copy of the CD.

Day 6 - Scene - Grandfather's Dance

2011-12-06T07:42:00.001Z

Modulating back into A major, Clara and Fritz thank their Godfather Drosselmeyer for the toys. The music is a lilting 6/8 andantino. But when the children realise that the toys are not for playing with, the music shifts into a more serious vein. Clara is mollified by another gift – a toy Nutcracker – and the music cadences neatly into D major. She dances a gentle polka and asks Drosslemeyer what the toy is for. He explains that you can crack nuts in its mouth; Fritz wants to play too. His aggressive music – complete with rattle - used in Haydn and Romberg's Toy Symphonies, Tchaikovsky tells us in the score – interrupts Clara’s caring dance. Fritz finally gets hold of the Nutcracker, breaks it and throws it to the ground. Clara is distraught. Having had enough of their bickering, Herr Stahlbaum commands another dance, the Grossvater. As before, this stately triple-time is in C major and Tchaikovsky employs a variant of the tune for ‘Drei Reiter am Tor’ from Des knaben Wunderhorn. Not only has Herr Stahlbaum silenced the children, but he re-establishes a more foursquare harmonic language.

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Click here to order a recording of the complete ballet.

Artists of The Royal Ballet in The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Iolanta - the Nutcracker's bedfellow

2011-12-05T14:47:00.001Z

When The Nutcracker premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in December 1892, it was accompanied by an opera called Iolanta. Tchaikovsky had first read the play on which it was based back in 1883, but the decision to set the text (with a libretto by his brother Modest) only came when the commission for The Nutcracker arrived. But why, when the ballet is a perennial, has the opera nigh disappeared?

Some eight years ago I came across an issue of The Russian Messenger that featured a one act play by a Danish writer Henrik Hertz translated by F. Miller, entitled King René's Daughter. The story had charmed me by its poetry, originality, and an abundance of lyrical scenes. I then made up my mind to set it to music. Due to various obstacles, however, it was only last year that I could realize my decision.

Set in 15th century France, Iolanta is a blind princess, but has no idea that she is quite alone in her affliction. She has been promised in marriage to the Duke of Burgundy, but he is ignorant of her condition. A physician promises that the only way she can be cured is by truly longing to see the light from which she has been protected. The Duke of Burgundy arrives but he is in love with someone else and it is his friend Vaudemont who falls in love with the strange princess. Realising that she cannot tell the red and the white roses apart, Vaudemont uncovers her disability. 'What is light?' she asks. 'It was our creator's first gift to the world.' The King is appalled that Vaudemont has revealed his daughter's affliction, but the physician insists that the impetus for her remedy has been found. In order to cure her, the King tells Iolanta that Vaudemont will be killed if she is not cured. But Iolanta regains her sight and the couple are rightfully reunited.

This strange, Pelléas et Mélisande-like tale (avant la lettre) elicited contrasting music from Tchaikovsky. The sombre colours of the overture - with sighing cor anglais and bassoon - speak of spiritual deficiency in the kingdom, while Tchaikovsky captures love of Iolanta and Vaudemont in gloriously longing tones. Although composed at the same time as The Nutcracker, the opera has a markedly different sound world to the ballet. But that idea of restoration and new life runs through both pieces. In the ballet, Clara becomes an adult, changed by her love for the Nutcracker/Nephew. At the end of the opera, Iolanta is finally able to see (and to love). As in Eugene Onegin, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and even the depressingly pessimistic Queen of Spades, love remains the redeeming force in Tchaikovsky's world.

The composer was initially pleased with Iolanta, despite the arduous trial of getting two separate works ready for the stage. And after the premiere he said that,

Yesterday the opera and ballet enjoyed a great success. The opera in particular was to everyone’s liking ... The productions of both the opera and ballet were superb.

But it wasn't long before the press, much like after The Queen of Spades, began to criticise opera and ballet alike. Tchaikovsky was clearly pushing forward into new territory. We will find out what he might have meant by The Nutcracker, but Iolanta similarly represented an innovative stream. Rather than external drama, Tchaikovsky depicted internal longing. But that change from kinetic drama to inner tension had not been instilled in the Russian critical mind. Wagner had only just arrived in Russia by way of an 1889 Ring cycle. And although Iolanta has some fine music, it cannot compete with the sheer magic of invention in The Nutcracker. When Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker was first performed at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1992 it was performed with Iolanta. Rather than letting performance history decide, you can judge for yourself by listening to Gergiev's expert Mariinsky recording (available on Spotify).

Day 5 - Arrival of Drosselmeyer

2011-12-05T09:37:00.001Z

According to Petipa, Drosselmeyer’s arrival required ‘very serious, rather sinister and even droll music’. And after the tonal clarity of what has gone before, these recitative-like passages feel contrastingly insecure. But when the children realise that Drosselmeyer has brought toys, the mood lightens and the tempo increases. Clara and Fritz Stahlbaum are presented with their gifts (accompanied by a return to the initial Drosselmeyer theme). In the original scenario, Clara was given the head of a cabbage while Fritz had a large pie. Their confusion at these odd gifts is indicated through some harmonically puzzling music before Drosslemeyer reveals the dancing dolls underneath. There is bizarre malevolence to the score here, echoing the twisted chromaticism of Carabosse in The Sleeping Beauty. The mazurka for the first two dolls is scored for two clarinets and two bassoons. Its lurching theme eventually gives way to a stuttering waltz with thrown accents disturbing the underlying metrical emphasis. A short transition pasages introduces two militaristic dolls, who perform a ‘diabolical dance’. The A major tonality gives way to the relative minor and the music becomes increasingly aggressive, with scampering runs in the strings.

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Gary Avis as Drosselmeyer, Brian Maloney as Harlequin and Bethany Keating as Columbine
in The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Day 4 - Children’s Galop and Entry of the Parents

2011-12-04T08:45:00.001Z

At this point in the score, Petipa requested a whole series of national dances. There were to be Chinese, Spanish, Italian, English, Russian and French dances – none of them particularly long – followed by a gallop for the children. Petipa intended to build a parallel between the party at the Stahlbaum’s and the famous Divertissements of the second act. That plan was clearly dropped – though sketches for the English gig survive. What remains is just the Children’s gallop (in the same key as their march). The music shifts into C major and a statelier triple-time dance for the adults (with more than a hint of Wagner’s own music for the city of Nuremberg). But if the grownups seem a little serious, Tchaikovsky soon launches into another dance, this time in 6/8 time and in F major (implying a circle of fifths in the key sequence). Although the dance has equal phrase lengths, they trip ahead of themselves. Howard Blake was clearly influenced by this passage when he came to write the Dance of the Snowmen in his score for the 1982 cartoon. Drosselmeyer suddenly appears at the end of the dance, which ends with a dramatic interrupted cadence.

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Elizabeth Harrod as Clara in The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

The Dark Arts of Birmingham's Nutcracker

2011-12-03T08:41:00.001Z

Birmingham Royal Ballet's Nutcracker celebrates its 21st birthday this year. For over two decades Peter Wright's production has wowed audiences, notching up over 400 performances. Its popularity knows no bounds and this year it will come to the O2, playing to 20,000 people a night at six performances between 27-30 December. I caught up with it at its original home at the Birmingham Hippodrome where it was great to see that its charms haven't faded.

Every Nutcracker has magic, but Peter Wright really goes the distance with his highly textured BRB production. This is the dark arts Nutcracker. Drosselmeyer is a shaman-like figure, conjuring entire worlds from his bag of tricks. Having produced the ballet for the ROH in 1984, this 1990 show was a radical rethink and many of the ideas found their way back into Wright's 1999 revision of The Royal Ballet production. John Macfarlane's designs move from the shadowy melancholy of Fanny and Alexander into a bright abstract realm. It's weird but entirely wonderful.

Rather than the redemptive tale on offer at Covent Garden, this is an extended dream. The Nutcracker does not come back to life but is an agent for Clara's nocturnal fantasy. She longs to be a ballerina and Drosselmeyer grants her wish by turning her into the Sugar Plum Fairy. Despite the lack of conclusive emotional punch, the production has a balletic logic of its own. Wright occasionally has to stretch the meaning of Tchaikovsky's score and adds a passage to cover Clara's transformation, but there's choreographic and theatrical joy aplenty.

The Christmas Tree is like a triffid with Clara cowering under its branches. There's no mouse king; these are grotesque rats and King Rat's reappearance in Act 2 brilliantly links the narrative of both acts. As well as offering new takes for seasoned Nutcracker lovers, Wright creates a vivid tale for wide-eyed first timers.

And it's dance terrifically. Angela Paul was a charming Clara, with winsome smiles and beautiful extensions showing that she was already the ballerina of her dreams. It's a shame that, while the Nutcracker changes into a Prince, Wright replaces Clara with another Sugar Plum Fairy. By doing so, he undermines her transformation. But when her variation is danced with such candied precision as Laëtitia Lo Sardo did on Thursday afternoon - amazingly, her debut - the benefit far outweighs the drawback. Although technically assured, only Matthew Lawrence's slightly passive monarch disappointed.

But if you're looking for an vivid theatrical treat, Peter Wright and John Macfarlane's production is unbeatable. The radical shadows of its turn-of-the-century look gives a Freudian note to the production. But, as with the darker passages of Tchaikovsky's score, Wright never overplays his hand. For all the darkness on display, there are wonderful bursts of childish glee. Like Clara, you'll cry to dream again.

The Nutcracker is in Birmingham until 11 December. Click here for more information.
The production runs at the O2 between 27 and 30 December. Click here for more information.
Photos © BRB/ Bill Cooper

Day 3 - March

2011-12-03T08:24:00.001Z

As Clara snaps out of the reverie, Herr Stahlbaum strikes up a march. Petipa asked Tchaikovsky to compose another 64 bars of music here. While Tchaikovsky exceeds the numerical brief, he perfectly conjures the party atmosphere. It is a nimble trot in G major - note how Tchaikovsky is keeping the dramatic pace up by his constant but logical sequence of keys. As in the overture, Tchaikovsky plays on our expectations, by varying the phrase lengths and changing the cadential consequences of the music. Alternating between brass and strings, Tchaikovsky seems to imply a masculine versus feminine sound world. But a child-like tone is created by its relatively high range. A darker quality comes to the fore in the middle section – couched in E minor, the tonality that will dominate the snow scene at the end of the act. Although truly nefarious sounds are always kept at bay, Tchaikovsky’s sound world is never simplistic. The march theme returns in more exuberant colours.

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Iohna Loots as Clara in The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

The Original Story (and other inspirations)

2011-12-02T07:55:00.001Z

Photo from Here

Oh Nuremberg, Nuremberg, dear native town he who still knows thee not, place of renown though far he has travelled, and great cities seen as London, and Paris, and Peterwardein knoweth not what it is happy to be still must his longing heart languish for thee for thee, Oh Nuremberg, exquisite town where the houses have windows both upstairs and down!

Although we immediately associate The Nutcracker with Imperial Russia, the story has its roots in German Romanticism. E.T.A. Hoffmann, who wrote Nussknacker und Mausekönig, was an amazingly cross-cultural man. He was a poet, a writer, a composer and a critic. Today we know him primarily through the stage works he inspired, such as Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann and the ballet Coppélia. His story of boy imprisoned in a wooden Nutcracker has all the supernatural and mechanical hallmarks of his style. And by locating the story in Nuremberg, a glorious medieval confection of a city – celebrated in Wagner’s 1868 opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg – Hoffmann recalls the city’s heritage as a clock and toy-making hub during the Holy Roman Empire. It’s a world where magic isn’t wholly unbelievable.

But as well as that supernatural element, Hoffmann wanted to create something homely and tangible. The tale was written in 1816, at the beginning of a period later called Biedermeier or Backhendlzeit (the time of fried chicken). Revolutions in France and the consequent Napoleonic campaigns had destablised the authority of century-old Empires. But after the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and the defeat of Napoleon’s troops at Waterloo, a period of insurrection and change came to an end. Rather than prompting mass-liberalisation of politics and culture, the old guard became yet more reactionary. Censorship was rife and the emerging middle class was put back in its box. Things, by default, became more domesticated, so The Nutcracker begins at home. This is a family tale.

The story reached the choreographer Marius Petipa’s hands in French. It had been translated by Alexandre Dumas, who wrote The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers and whose son would later write La Dame aux camellias (the basis for La traviata). After the success of The Sleeping Beauty in 1890, the Director of the Imperial Theatres Ivan Vsevolozhsky wanted a new ballet from Tchaikovsky and Petipa. It would be placed on a double bill with a brand new opera (coming hot on the heels of The Queen of Spades, which had been dropped from the repertoire). Moving away from Hoffmann and Dumas, Petipa conceived his own scenario, binning a huge flashback sequence and focussing on a more linear narrative. And he split the story between two very separate acts. The first was a quest narrative focussing on Marie (now called Clara), who follows her heart and saves the Nutcracker in battle. Her escapades in the Christmas Tree were probably inspired by Charles Dickens' short story about this new festive innovation in Britain. The second act was a more static dance show, situated in the Kingdom of Sweets.

Tchaikovsky wasn’t hugely impressed with the task at hand and, after Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty (both of which had been taxing projects), he felt that the story was too slight. Since its unsuccessful premiere in St Petersburg, subsequent dramatists and choreographers have sought to link the two acts more successfully. In the 1984 production for the Royal Opera House (revised in 1999), Peter Wright returned to the tale's Hoffmann roots. By contrasting the domestic ease of the Stahlbaum household with Clara’s emerging womanhood and Drosselmeyer’s dark magic, the story is emotionally grounded. There’s still magic aplenty, but by returning to Drosselmeyer’s workshop in the final bars – where the Nephew, released from the spell, greets his long-lost Uncle – Wright gave The Nutcracker the emotional charge it requires.

Day 2 - The Decoration of the Christmas Tree

2011-12-02T07:46:00.001Z

The curtain rises on the Stahlbaum’s family home. Petipa asked Tchaikovsky to write 64 bars of peaceful and tender music to accompany the decoration of the Christmas tree. Although outwardly calm, the music (in D major) has an inner buzz. Chromatic shifts and a throbbing bass line build on the excitement of the overture. Ever-shorter phrases compound the enthusiasm, building to a louder statement of the theme, complete with rumbling timpani. A more conversant passage between the woodwind sounds pleasantly social. After those 64 bars, this builds to another climactic version of the melody, answering Petipa’s request for ‘sparkling music’ as the tree lights are illuminated (eight bars). It’s nine o’clock in the evening and the following music accompanies the children’s entrance. The harmonic language becomes increasingly complicated, escalating over a number of bars (many more than Petipa’s requested 24) to an abrupt halt. ‘Astounded and delighted’ the children look up at the glorious Christmas tree. A vertiginous harp cadenza and rocking oboe theme creates an eerie haze over the scene. Everything is not as domesticated as it first seems.

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The Christmas Tree, The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Day 1 - Miniature Overture

2011-12-01T07:38:00.001Z

The story begins with a whisper. This is the only passage in the score for which Petipa didn't given Tchaikovsky any instructions. Divisi strings play a simple toy-like melody in B flat major. It has equal four-bar phrases: the first phrase moves towards the dominant; the second moves back to the tonic. A scampering motif, first in the violas and then in the flute generates a sense of excitement. But there's also an occasional note of sadness as the music lands in G minor. Tchaikovsky doesn’t dwell on these darker harmonies and the music soon builds to a more ebullient statement of the main theme in the woodwind (accompanied by a tinsel-like triangle). Oboes sound like toy trumpets and pizzicato strings lend frosty grace. However, the surging phrases belie this plaything atmosphere. Are there larger emotional questions at hand? By the time the B flat major theme returns for the last time it is more confident and the overture concludes with pert cadence in the home key.

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Gary Avis as Drosselmeyer in The Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker
Photograph © ROH/Johan Persson

Which recording of The Nutcracker to have

2011-11-30T21:49:00.001Z

In order to follow the Advent Calendar, you’ll need a good recording to hand. I’ve chosen Simon Rattle’s zinging new account with the Berlin Philharmonic (which you can buy on Amazon, download from iTunes or listen to track-by-track on Spotify). Deaf to years of theatrical compromise, Rattle comes to the score unsullied. And like a first-class picture restoration, there’s renewed giddy brilliance to its colours and textures.

It comes up against tough competition with Gergiev’s 1998 recording on Philips. Gergiev’s orchestra has all the expected verve, but it lacks the emotional chops of the Berlin Phil. And while the Russians’ performance is squeezed on to one disc, EMI gives Rattle the luxury of two; it allows the ballet to breathe.

The added space, however, doesn’t make for any unwanted sluggishness. Right from Clara’s poignant first meeting with the Nutcracker to the vodka-shot clout of the Russian Dance, there’s real tang to these melodious treats. And you hear danger too, with brusque woodwind accents during the Mouse King battle and snarling trombones under the snowflakes. Throughout, Rattle maintains that balance between sweet and sour. And the whole performance feels distinctly more fleet of foot than Andre Previn’s rather bulky rendition with the LSO (recently re-released on EMI).

Following that broad lead, Pletnev’s Russian National Orchestra version, just out on Ondine, overplays the ballet’s symphonic credentials. While it worked for the orchestra's benchmark Sleeping Beauty on DG, in The Nutcracker a conductor has to ensure that emotion doesn't overwhelm the thrill. Too often Pletnev’s overplays his hand with pizzicato sounding like Bartók. Someone who better knows the work’s temperament is Mark Ermler with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House (now available at bargain price on Sony). Unsurprisingly, the seasoned ROH dance-accompanists know how to make this music swing.

But none of these contenders matches the Berlin recording’s all-round passion and pizazz. Most notably, Rattle’s really thought about the ballet’s emotional context. For him and his players, it’s not just an orchestral showcase. Underlining the melancholy of Tchaikovsky’s score, this Nutcracker confronts the unhappy and lost soul who wrote it. The power and space given to the melodies allows the piece to wear an ambiguous heart on its sleeve. This is proper grown-up stuff, addressing the loss of innocence as well as the garish tinsel of Christmas. By knocking off the dust of routine, Tchaikovsky’s seasonal jewel sparkles once more. And Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic’s emotional clarity reminds us why we all fell for The Nutcracker in the first place.

A Sweet and Nutty Advent Calendar

2011-11-30T08:20:00.001Z

Every year, Entartete Musik has an Advent Calendar. 24 snapshots. One for each day leading up to Christmas. It started (unsurprisingly) with the tonalities of the harmonic scale, then we followed the poems that make up Schubert’s Winterreise, giving us a bleaker journey towards Christmas. Last year I popped around the 23 districts of Vienna, ending up on Christmas Eve in the enchanting Wienerwald.

Aiming to mix forestry, winter and tonality this year, the 24 movements of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker will provide the windows for the 2011 Entartete Musik Advent Calendar. Each day the blog will focus on a particular passage in the score – a blow-by-blow programme note if you will. The posts will look at the detailed instructions that the initial choreographer Marius Petipa gave to Tchaikovsky. Having worked together on the revised Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, Petipa was a hard but clear taskmaster. He knew exactly what he wanted and that Tchaikovsky could deliver it. Then I'll look at what Tchaikovsky did with those instructions, accompanied by a photograph from the Royal Opera House’s glorious production (which opens this weekend).

In addition to the score, there will be articles about the inspiration for the ballet, the choreographers, potential interpretations and the impact of this incredible ballet. So I hope you’ll join us as we travel with Clara and the Nutcracker from Nuremberg through the snow to the Kingdom and Sweets over the next 24 days.

Ken Russell (1927-2011) R.I.P.

2011-11-28T09:42:00.001Z

The fantastical film-maker Ken Russell has died at the age of 84. Loved and loathed in equal measure for his composer films, Russell was an uncompromising artist. The composer films were BBC projects at first, including the iconic Elgar (1962) and the 1968 Song of Summer about Delius. Later, more florid theatrical releases included The Music Lovers (1970) and Mahler (1974). Outside musical circles he is famed for his adaptations of D.H. Lawrence and the Who's Tommy.

His friend Norman Lebrecht announced the news that the director died on Sunday 27 November.

His film of Sandy Wilson's 1954 musical The Boy Friend will be shown at the BFI on 9 and 29 December. Click here for more information.

Here are some of the highlights of Russell's career:

Striving with all its Might

2011-11-27T14:56:00.001Z

Hurrah to Hyperion for releasing this year's Proms performance of Havergal Brian's 'Gothic' Symphony. Many of the supporters of this behemoth rightly asked how audience and critics could judge the work after only one performance. This disc offers endless further chances and is a vast improvement on other available versions. But however spirited this new recording, Brian's gargantuan symphony does not shine.

Mounting the 'Gothic' is achievement enough; bringing it off with any élan is nigh remarkable. And Martyn Brabbins scores a significant goal by imbuing the music's climaxes with shape and space. Taking the vast 110 minutes architecture of this piece in again, the recording accentuates both its positive and the negative aspects. There's much to enjoy within the first part, with the sour longing of the opening movement and a virtuosic diabolical dance in the third.

But while listening to those instrumental movements builds on the live experience, doubts over the second part are equally reinforced. Brian's choral writing is so shapeless that it remains an impossible task for the singers to bring it off. Even the unstintingly supportive Havergal Brian Society cannot deny the shortcomings on its homepage. And if these excellently drilled choral societies do not achieve what is required, the fault lies with the composer. So while belligerent homophonic shouts impress, the predominant counterpoint (of sorts) only exposes Brian's flaws. It becomes a musical war of attrition and the 'Judex crederis' passages are simply unpleasant.

The 'Dignare' - led by a stentorian Alastair Miles - communicates some of the inner logic lacking elsewhere. Climax finally has consequence; cowered by that previously outspoken music, the chorus responds with regretful harmonies. It makes for a warm and truly spiritual conclusion, but is too brief and too late. Hearing the symphony again, it remains clear that Brian's ambitions outstrip his skill. The amassed performers and sparkling stereo sound inject life into this daunting piece, but Brian's idiomatic technique too often fails, the performers are left exposed and the impact is nil. Hyperion has done the champions and the detractors of this work a great service: for the former, they finally have a recording they can cherish; for the latter, confirmation that the symphony isn't worth the effort. Click here to order a copy.

Protesting too much

2011-11-26T16:14:00.001Z

When Schoenberg wrote his 2nd String Quartet in 1908, he threw down a gauntlet. Chamber music was pushed out of the domestic and into the dramatic arena. The work was dedicated 'to my wife' but created during a relationship between Mathilde Schoenberg (Zemlinsky's sister) and the artist Richard Gerstl. Close the impact of that disastrous summer, Zemlinsky's music changed and this new recording of his string quartets bears the hallmark of that seismic shift. But in many ways the Prague-based Zemlinsky Quartet overstates its case.

Although Zemlinsky didn't follow Schoenberg down the later serialist path, their expressionistic periods are as intense as each others. It is a hostile sound world, and the Zemlinsky Quartet deliver it with great verve and clarity. Textures are well balanced, with each line - or Haupstimme - coming gloriously to the fore. These are dynamic performances of heady works.

But after a while, the richness of their playing becomes too much. Quieter dynamics lack a necessary frisson and the Adagio is too pushy. More supple playing can be found on Chandos Records' complete recording of Zemlinsky's music for strings by the Schoenberg Quartet. For music that is so outspoken, playing with this continued weight makes for a bizarre decision. The more disjointed textures of the 4th Quartet fare better. Here, the music is more introverted, so the players' attack creates an interesting dialectic between piece and performance. But despite the exciting playing on this disc, it remains too outspoken a disc. For all the bitterness of Zemlinsky's sound world, its underlying sweetness and space feels shortchanged. Click here to order a copy.

I do...

2011-11-26T14:46:00.001Z

As leading Russian politicians move to ban all gay 'propaganda', here is one of the most moving and joyful recent examples of such material, created by the Australian advocacy organisation Get Up! It's made my weekend.

Hearing in Sepia

2011-11-24T15:36:00.001Z

'Perhaps anyone who likes Korngold is by definition a wallower.' That's one of the responses to my review of the new Frankfurt tote Stadt. And the reader has a point. After listening and reviewing to that disc, I turned to another ostensible lotus eater. I'd grown tired of the recordings of Tchaikovsky's Pathétique I had on the shelf. And having been un-wowed by Pletnev's recent Russian National Orchestra renditions of 4, 5 and 6 (all recently out on Pentatone), I treated myself to Karajan's Berlin Phil set of the lot; I'm not disappointed.

The Berliners give me all the glorious warmth, grandeur and lachrymosity I could need in Tchaikovsky. But, most importantly, there's a ferocious edge. The explosion in the middle of the 1st movement of the Pathétique is catastrophic; the lower strings respond with a barbaric yawp. There's a snarl at the end of the 1st movement of the 5th that totally destabilises the sincerity of what's gone before, and the finale of the 4th is Blitzkrieg. With all the sepia luxury on offer elsewhere, what really makes these pieces work is an accompaniment of paper cuts. There's going to be lots of Tchaikovsky on the blog throughout December, but it's not going to be cosy. Click here to order the perfect accompaniment.

Die langsame Stadt

2011-11-24T13:47:00.001Z

Over the last decade, Die tote Stadt has popped up all over the world. Having conducted the work in Barcelona, Sebastian Weigle's revived the masterpiece in his new home in Frankfurt (and recorded by Oehms Classics). Weigle clearly loves the opera, but despite casting bounties, his passion has embalmed Korngold rather than setting him free.

Korngold's sound world is ripe before you begin. Every note has an effect, every bar is laden with rubato. He's a tough task master, because he leaves so little to chance. But underneath that honeyed sheen is a more acidic note and all the bitterness of post-War Europe. Any performance needs to balance those complementary poles. Weigle emphasises the luxury at the expense of vigour.

While gloriously played by the Frankfurt Opern- und Museumsorchester, this all-too-caring approach gets in the way. Nothing is thrown away, there's little humour and the opening of the opera slides into turgid remembrance. It should spacious not sluggish. Metallic percussion and celesta are placed thrilling far forward in the mix, but they fail to cut through the treacle.

Despite the slack tempi, there are vocal glories aplenty. Klaus Florian Vogt is a lyrical Paul. You may miss the danger of a nasal Heldentenor, but the romance has never felt so true. Michael Nagy and Hedwig Fassbender are similarly hushed as Frank/Fritz and Brigitta. Tatiana Pavlovskaya gives a citric bite to Marietta, but her flat vowels undermine 'Glück das mir verblieb'. The aria has many richer renditions on disc. And with four other complete recordings and two DVDs of the opera now on the market, this performance is for wallowers only. Click here to order a copy.

Sena Jurinac (1921-2011) R.I.P.

2011-11-23T16:17:00.001Z

Shortly after I received news of Georg Kreisler's death, I was sent another missive about Sena Jurinac. An adopted Austrian singer of markedly different but no less entertaining talents, Jurinac was one of the finest singers of the post-War period. She is perhaps most synonymous with Der Rosenkavalier and it was in the role of Marschallin that she couched Rita Cullis (who say Strauss at our wedding). Jurinac sang at the Staatsoper over 1000 times before her retirement during the 1982/3 season. The current Intendant Dominique Meyer said that, 'We are mourning the loss of a legendary artist who shaped not only the Vienna State Opera but also the entire opera world'. She made few recordings, though she is perhaps best remembered as Octavian in the Karajan film of the opera which dominated her career.

Georg Kreisler (1922-2011) R.I.P.

2011-11-23T16:03:00.001Z

George Kreisler, one of Austria's most prolific satirists and comedians, has died. Born in Vienna in 1922, his career started in New York, as his family had to flee Austria after the Anschluß. But he took with him his musical training from Vienna and used it as well as pinpoint humour to entertain his fellow American troops during the Second World War. He later returned to Europe, but refused to apply for Austrian citizenship. Having had it stolen from him in 1938, he felt it could be returned to him just as swiftly. Recently he's been living in Salzburg with his wife and last toured Europe earlier this year. Although he always amused, his stand on Austrian citizenship was indicative of his critical stance. Many of his songs are available on YouTube, but this one brilliantly combines the spirit of Vienna and New York. There are shades of the Tom Lehrer about his work - something which was a constant bone of contention between the two comedians - but there's certainly enough room for both figures.

Thank you to Peter Puskás for bringing Georg Kreisler to my attention... I've wasted hours on Facebook trying to translate Viennese dialect!

Murakami's Janáček

2011-11-22T21:04:00.001Z

The taxi’s radio was tuned to a classical FM broadcast. Janáček’s Sinfonietta—probably not the ideal music to hear in a taxi caught in traffic. The middle-aged driver didn’t seem to be listening very closely, either. With his mouth clamped shut, he stared straight ahead at the endless line of cars stretching out on the elevated expressway, like a veteran fisherman standing in the bow of his boat, reading the ominous confluence of two currents. Aomame settled into the broad back seat, closed her eyes, and listened to the music.

So begins Haruki Murakami’s novel 1Q84. But at nearly 1000 pages, can Janáček entice me? Anyone else read it?

Nature and Nurture

2011-11-21T21:24:00.001Z

The married Cathy greets Heathcliff. A canary is pictured in a cage. Nature is mirrored in nurture. It's one of many fleeting but forceful images in Andrea Arnold's new Wuthering Heights. Gone are the baying lovers and in comes the rain, introspection and gloom. Animals are slaughtered and lives are ruined without flinching. Narrative bounty hunters may loathe this bold new version, but it's the most perspicacious distillation of this story ever made.

Wuthering Heights is not a dramatic tale. There are torrid emotions, but little tension. Heathcliff grows up with the Earnshaws. Their daughter Cathy and the boy form an unbreakable relationship, until local squire Edgar Linton steals Heathcliff's lifeline. Heathcliff flees, returning six-months later to claim his beloved. Cathy is married and Heathcliff responds by wedding her sister-in-law, only to ruin them all. Arnold bins peripherals, including the narrator and the book's endless 'Maturity of Heathcliff' chapters. Her choices, like her aesthetic, are brutal but decisive.

Heathcliff is a foundling, picked off the streets of Liverpool. We know nothing about him as he's thrown into the disaster. The violence, mud and mire of the Earnshaw's living are painted in violent colours. Watercolour textures blur Heathcliff with the environment. Racially abused by his adopted family, he is forced to find solace elsewhere. Only Cathy understands him. Yet as soon as nature proffer pathos, Arnold bars such panacea in a series fast-changing seasons and even quicker emotions. Arnold plays the drama through her protagonists' eyes. Inference is key; nothing is signposted and everything focusses on the lovers. Solomon Glave's ability to communicate emotion without talk constantly enlivens the screen. Shannon Beer's Cathy is more seasoned and prosaic, yet their scenes snap with danger.

Skin, fire and mud become the couple's and Arnold's vocabulary. The Linton household - a little too 'Yorkshire Life' alongside the film's otherwise tangible realism - forces the adult pair (played by James Howson and Kaya Scodelario) to talk. Their conversation, the afternoon tea and the spaniel that Heathcliff cruelly strangles are the domain of Austen and Eliot; Emily Brontë's characters are people of few words and little sentiment. And Andrea Arnold knows it.

Without music, without stifling finish, this Wuthering Heights is a thrilling smash and grab through emotion. Stripping everything back to its bare bones, we feel the blood pumping in the lovers' veins. Visceral narrative makes for instinctive film. And the jolting shots, narrative austerity and wind-battered countryside make Brontë's shock of English Romanticism shocking once more. Click here for more information.

Allüberall und ewig

2011-11-20T21:24:00.001Z

Das Lied von der Erde had its premiere at the Tonhalle Zürich 100 years ago today. Bruno Walter conducted, with Sara Cahier and William Miller as the soloists. Here's a recent recording from the Leipzig Mahler Festival with Anna Larsson and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (conducted by Fabio Luisi).

Euphoria Unlimited

2011-11-20T16:36:00.001Z

How much euphoria can one person take? It's a question you'll ask time and time again when listening to the Gewandhausorchester's new Beethoven symphonies. Released in time for their residency at the Barbican and in Paris, these recordings are superb souvenirs of the live experience. But they are also as fresh and polemical as the works themselves.

Rather than reviewing each symphony in turn, I took a running jump and listened to the lot (complete with 8 overtures) in one sitting. It's an exhausting ride. Commitment, energy and zest burst out of the speakers from the first discord to the last fanfare. Riccardo Chailly and his band remain on their game. Sassy buffa spirit gives way to new world order; you cannot turn away.

Playing at the original marked speeds is a daring choice, but it pays off. Chailly's life-long relationship with Italian opera and, more recently, with Bach in Leipzig, serves his Beethoven well. It has theatrical gumption, but cerebral grounding. Nothing is played as meaningless thrill and neither is it allowed to slump into self-aggrandisement.

Most orchestras would strip tone right back to deliver speed; the Gewandhausorchester has no truck with small sound. Combative brass and citric woodwind lend tang to already zingy strings. The playing is as fearless as Chailly's direction. But as Hanno Müller-Brachmann's 'O Freunde' launches the all-embracing choral epilogue, you can't help feel a tinge of sadness; 6 hours of the finest recent playing on disc is coming to an end. Unlike at the Barbican, you can simply turn back to the first disc and begin all over again. Click here to order a copy of this joyful set.

Death shall have no dominion

2011-11-18T14:12:00.001Z

Schubert died in November 1828. He had completed his String Quintet two months before. You can hear the work as a fevered and bitter goodbye, like the Belcea Quartet's recent recording on EMI. Or it can be performed as 'life in the old boy yet'. That's the sound world that the Tokyo Quartet and David Watkin inhabit in their velvety new recording for Harmonia Mundi.

Rather than accentuating dialectic, the Tokyo Quartet prefers a muted but luxurious tone. The shifting harmonies of the first movement appear as if from treacle. It particularly works in the lilting second subject. Their performance shows Schubert in all his maturity, though the development section lacks danger. There's something a little too earthbound about this Adagio. Glorious, but not yet gripping.

The choice really pays off when the growling scherzo is interrupted by a wonderful understated trio. Slurred delivery blurs space and time and Schubert is caught in the middle. It's a double bluff, professing warmth just that little bit too much. And the Tokyo's weighty finale and performance of the Quartettsatz push those sumptuous credentials yet further. This is the Schubert of heavy smoke and drink rather than the shivering wreck. But it works and we need to experience both ends of that spectrum. Click here to order a copy.

Jazzing with Schulhoff

2011-11-18T09:58:00.001Z

Reading through Erwin Schulhoff's life story is like swallowing a huge unwieldy history of music from from post-Wagnerian excess to Weimar experimentation. Born in Prague, the German-speaking prodigy adored the music of Dvořák, Skryabin and Strauss. Time spent in Leipzig and Cologne expanded his tastes, taking in Debussy, as well as contemporary German music. It was a melting pot of styles. His admiration for Moravian maverick Janáček (himself a great admirer of Debussy) took him down yet more overgrown paths. But despite this varied but 'traditional' grounding, Schulhoff adored the jazz experimentation of the Weimar Republic. He later abandoned the florid foxtrots for astringent social realism, but the Weimar jazz is among his most attractive music. Back in September, John Harle premiered a new orchestration by Richard Rodney Bennett of Schulhoff's Hot Sonata. There's nobody better than Bennett to understand the world of the classical musician turned jazzer. Harle is superb in this and the Matrix Ensemble (who played for a number of the Entartete Musik releases on Decca) give sterling support. The piece was premiered at a Nightingale Project concert, an original charity that brings art and music (and lot more besides) into the Mental Health services of the NHS. A terrific cause, which has furthermore provided one of the best things on YouTube at the moment.

In response to Symphony

2011-11-18T07:37:00.001Z

'Musos I know have been a bit sniffy about this series.' Or so writes John Crace in today's Guardian. Not this muso. BBC Four's Symphony is, by and large, an excellent linear survey of the genre. With spirited performances by the OAE, Hallé and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, this is a programme gifted with lavish production. But how much are we learning?

Anyone who's done a moderate amount of musical history won't be gaining much. But the programme clearly isn't made for those who have already studied. It's like a good A-level or 1st year degree lecture (the programme incidentally ties in with the Open University). So after a skip through the 18th century, the Beethoven Myth has dominated. Fair point. Having dwelt on the deaf totem, Berlioz, Brahms, Wagner and Mahler have all been interpreted through his lens.

John Deathridge is the expert on hand and is superb. Simon Russell Beale offers a patrician and approachable narrator. But Mark Elder should be encouraged to focus on conducting rather than presenting. How many more times will we hear the word 'extraordinary'? C major is not the primary key of Brahms 1 and pedalling that 'Bruckner is like a cathedral' chestnut is unforgivable. Elder would get a 2:2... all theory, poor evidence.

Still, when he takes to the podium, Elder more than justifies his presence. There was a particularly shrewd moment when he dismantled and reformed a passage of Mahler 3, showing us in an instant why Mahler was different. A shame, then, that the Austrian was shortchanged. Tchaikovsky's Pathétique was covered in a similarly hasty manner, without a single mention of his homosexuality (perhaps that comes under the Russian banner of 'propaganda').

Despite breezing over major figures in 5-minute sweeps, the programme puts things in greater context. Political, social and artistic change feature prominently. It adds local colour and a heck of a lot of trams. Ultimately it makes the point that music is (or at least was) the heartbeat of history. So Symphony wouldn't get a first at finals, but it's an entertaining glimmer on a dwindling arts horizon. Next week, Shostakovich, Copland and Ives.

Tastes of Vienna

2011-11-17T12:50:00.001Z

When is a recipe book not a recipe book? When it's created by Kurt Gutenbrunner in association with the Neue Galerie. Neue Cuisine, published this month by Rizzoli, may be filled with recipes from Gutenbrunner's successful chain of New York eateries, but it's also a tender memory of his homeland.

Made with all the elegance of one of the Neue Galerie's exhibition catalogues, Gutenbrunner and writer Jane Sigal have made an inimitable record of the chef's life and loves. Like Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries, this is a recipe book for reading. So as well as finding clear and easy-to-follow recipes for Schnitzel, Strudel, Sachertorte and all the staples of an Austrian kitchen (albeit with a Gutenbrunner spin), there's also an excellent contextual essay by the Neue Galerie curator Janis Staggs and Gutenbrunner's reminiscences about Wallsee. The village on the River Danube where he was brought up now provides the name for Wallsé, his award-winning restaurant in the West Village one block from the River Hudson.

Like Slater and Stéphane Reynaud - whose books are staples in my kitchen at home - Gutenbrunner puts the chief ingredients of his cuisine in context. There are pages dedicated to savoury sausages, white asparagus and Trześniewski's bijoux open sandwiches. I only wish that he expanded more on Austria's excellent list of wines. But, lavishly illustrated with the food, snapshots from family albums and Wiener Werkstätte postcards, this manages to be a document of a kitchen and an entire culture.

When I visit New York, I make sure to take in one of Gutenbrunner's establishments. Like the Neue Galerie, his food offers entry to another world. And whenever I'm back in Vienna, I think of New York and those slivers of Austria on the banks of the Hudson - shadow cities, the writer André Aciman calls them. But now, I have a cook book which allows me to travel to both cities while remaining in my London kitchen. As a bible for modern Austrian food and finesse, Neue Cuisine is unparalleled in the English-speaking world. But it's so much more than just a recipe book. Click here to order a copy.

An even later gasp?

2011-11-16T10:06:00.001Z

Sibelius's 7th Symphony had its premiere in 1924. After that he had put orchestral pen to paper once more with Tapiola. But it was a last gasp. After its appearance, Sibelius's underlying depression and hermitic behaviour came to the surface; he retreated yet further and shut himself away at Järvenpää. At first he worked only on minor works for piano or violin and piano, but he was secretly at work on an 8th Symphony. Composition was sporadic, but in 1931 he told his correspondent Olin Downes not only that the symphony would be ‘ready for printing’ but that there were several other pieces brewing. Sibelius completed the symphony in 1933, sending through 23 pages to his copyist. The bill for the work survives, but everything else appeared to have been lost, probably burned in a musical bonfire during the 1940s.

But now Alex Ross reports, via Finnish music critic Vesa Sirén, that intriguing sketches have come to light. Local musicologists are being cautious, but it's likely that the fragmentary and dissonant music scrawled over this clutch of manuscript paper is indeed part of the destroyed work. You can read Vesa Sirén's article (in English) about the discovery and even hear some of the fragments performed by the Helsinki Philharmonic here. Ross (politely) and Norman Lebrecht (making a totally unjustifiable dig at Anthony Payne) have already tweeted their doubts about 'realisations', but if more fragments come to light, I'll be first in the queue to hear the results.

The Oliver Messel Show

2011-11-15T08:00:00.001Z

I've enjoyed the nostalgia, but now I want a new production of The Sleeping Beauty. Musically and dance-wise, last night's performance at the Royal Opera House was a joy. Marianela Nuñez and Thiago Soares (late replacements for injured parties) wowed, as they did back in 2009 and 2010. But they are hampered by what has become a warning against the perils of 'period' performance. At the risk of repeating myself, I wonder, when there are so many brilliant stage designers working today, why every attempt is made to recreate Oliver Messel's 1946 designs. Surely the job is to show the ballet in the best new light?

In this latest revival, Peter Farmer's pastel rainbow has been binned in the prologue. On come the severe costumes of Messel's original. They're all beautifully made by the ROH making departments, but there's not a single costume gain among these 'new' returns to the gaudy originals. What suggested timelessness when this production first 're-appeared' in 2006 now looks dated. Even if I bipass my professed love for Maria Björnson's 1994 innovations and think of a more traditional production, like John MacFarlane's look for the ROH Giselle, it's surely not beyond the wit of man to create a new Beauty that appeases both the dogged traditionalists and a more theatrically-aware crowd.

Ahead of last night's trip to Covent Garden, I had a brief look at the reviews for the latest revival. Clement Crisp was, as ever, in ecstasies about the 1946 look... for him it is the epitome of balletic mise en scène. But the Telegraph's Mark Jonathan failed to be moved by the performance. He suggests that there's little jeopardy on offer in this ballet. It's a woeful misunderstanding. And although he praises the designs, I cannot help but feel that if this great dance drama was set in a more tangible world, where 40s gaudiness does not jar, it could speak for today. Currently it panders to an incomplete memory of 1946. When the ballet is danced so well - and the company is in cracking form this autumn - why drag it down with Messel's burgundies, greens and browns? It's time for the shock of the new.

Photos © Dave Morgan, 2011

Brian Warlock

2011-11-14T14:44:00.001Z

I've always found Brian Sewell rather amusing. There was a particularly funny incident when he did the Santiago pilgrimage in the back of a grotesque Mercedes Benz. Gorging on gigot of lamb, he told the camera that it was 'very greasy but sustaining'. But he's clearly had a difficult life:

I am so much aware of the damage done by the concealment of identity — both in terms of sexuality and one’s parentage. For me searching for my father became an anguished quest, and I know this to be so for thousands of adopted children who confront the pretence and the effect of feeling that asking the question is forbidden.

In an article in today's Daily Mail, Sewell reveals that he is the illigimate son of Philip Heseltine (known more readily as the composer Peter Warlock). Click here to read more about Sewell's fascinating story.

Romantic Inhibitions

2011-11-13T21:05:00.001Z

Eugene Onegin is one of those operas that 'just works'. Mess with it at your peril. Often-headstrong Deborah Warner heeds the warning and has created the handsomest production since Andrei Serban's masterpiece for WNO. Ed Gardner's fevered reading of the score is similarly thoughtful. It's therefore a great pity that neither the Tatyana nor Onegin is able to deliver the heartbreaking denouement.

ENO has loyally backed Amanda Echalaz since she first popped onto the radar at ETO and Holland Park. Her attractive if rich voice cuts considerable mustard in the barn-like Coliseum. She's been a strong Liù and Tosca and will continue to flourish. But it's a dramatic push to Tchaikovsky's eloquent heroine and initial romantic inhibition becomes dry passivity. Although she impresses in the letter scene, neither she nor Audun Iversen's Onegin raises the temperature of Warner's frozen finale. Iversen's arrogance is undercooked and we wonder why either party places so much store in the other's reaction. Vocally he may be secure, but ego requires confidence.

No such reserve troubles Toby Spence's Lensky. His charm turns to tirade with frightening pace and his farewell elicits the only tears of the evening. Diane Montague and Catherine Wyn-Rogers offer similarly sterling performances as Larina and Filipievna, while the young Claudia Huckle is a winsome Olga; Lensky's dismissal is made all the brutal by her smiling innocence.

Every assistance is given to amplify the central pair's tragedy. Warner paces their story with vivid attention to detail. Mirrored farewell kisses underline the structural bridge between their rejection scenes. And housed in Tom Pye's stunning Chekhovian designs, Tatyana and Onegin's futile relationship unfolds in an increasingly harsh world. Yet Echalaz and Iversen cannot rise to the challenge and disappoint in the final moments. With a richer core couple this will become a benchmark production. Eugene Onegin is at the Coliseum until 3 December.

Little Treasure

2011-11-12T14:37:00.001Z

How valuable are books? Why do we treasure them? Will they disappear under a myre of Kindles, iPads and Kobos? Although Edmund de Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes is about treasuring a collection of Japanese Netsuke, Chatto and Windus's new illustrated edition equally reminds us why we should cherish all of our possessions.

Books are made for keeping. It's not just for the knowledge and the learning that our great cities are built with huge book depositories and reading rooms. Vienna's Prunksaal and the Pantheon-like heart of the British Museum were created as much as celebrations of the book itself as they are displays of imperial wealth and power. Within their many daily-dusted crannies exist worlds of opportunity. It's a phenomenon that you feel Edmund de Waal's acquisitive family knew well.

Little of notice has changed between the original issue and this new edition of de Waal's idiosyncratic biography, though the illustrations now form a major role, rather than the black and white reproductions that were included in the original. You feel like you're flicking through a family album, the absence of captions making you dive further into this secret narrative. It's a luxurious edition of an already luxurious book. Providing a metaphorical vitrine for de Waal's story, it celebrates the format in which the story is told. The cover has a velvety touch. Fonts are crystal clear. Although you can download an electronic version of the original edition of The Hare with Amber Eyes, this new version is a solitary talisman of age-old proper book reading.

My original hardback copy has been passed around friends and on to my other half, taken to Rome, to Vienna and stuffed in bags on sandy Suffolk beaches. It's looking a little battered. It carries its own patina and scuffs, much like the sweat that has worked its way into de Waal's collection of Netsuke. Luckily, I now have a copy of the book that can be treasured. It will be placed high on a shelf. And will only be looked at when I'm alone, silent and want to dive secretly into the world of belle époque Paris, Jahrhundertwende Vienna or post-War Japan. Like the Netsuke, this rare and lavish piece of book production is one to treasure. Click here to order a copy (not available for download).

UNESCO Kaffeehauskultur

2011-11-11T10:28:00.001Z

The Viennese Coffee Houses have been officially recognised for their unique place within Austrian and world culture. Institutions such as Demel, Diglas, Sperl, Central, Kleines, Hawelka, Bräunerhof, Landtmann and their myriad like are to be protected.

UNESCO has decided to safeguard the inimitable social practices of Kaffeehauskultur through the aegis of the National Agency for the Intangible Cultural Heritage. They describe the cafés as a place 'where time and space are consumed, but only the coffee is found on the bill'.

I'll be sure to visit a number of these sites during my next trip to the city at the end of December. For more information on the recognition click here.

Out of the Deep

2011-11-10T16:23:00.001Z

After its 1905 premiere, Alexander Zemlinsky took his tone poem Die Seejungfrau out of the public sphere. It wasn't heard again until 1984, when it was finally revealed as one of the composer's greatest works. Perhaps Zemlinsky unfavourably compared his piece with Schoenberg's Pelleas und Melisande, which premiered at the same concert. Whatever his reasons, he didn't rethink his rash removal. His error is at last our joy and the LSO and Xian Zhang proved keen resurrectors of this fin de siècle masterpiece.

Zemlinsky's huge orchestra, yearning themes and dazzling orchestration make Die Seejungfrau a vivid concert work. And Xian Zhang knows it, daringly programming it with works by Bartók and Nielsen. The Miraculous Mandarin has become somewhat ubiquitous of late, but despite an initially relentless fortissimo, it was given a determined performance by the LSO. Chris Richards was particularly superb in the suite's many clarinet solos. And the first half continued to offer woodwind showcases, with Gareth Davies taking to the platform in Nielsen's Flute Concerto. A mercurial, often charming but ultimately underwhelming work, Davies was nonetheless superb.

The emotional heart was definitely rooted in the second half's turn towards Zemlinsky. Again Zhang overheated the textures of the first movement and the contrapuntal textures of Zemlinsky's diaphanous orchestration became rather smudged. Yet the pace and control was restored by the middle and final movements was handled with great care. Shimmering strings, plangent bass clarinet and ferocious brass attacks meant took this far beyond the fairy-tale realm. I hope that it's the first of many such LSO forays into the byways of 'entartete' repertoire.