Fleeing the Tonal Center, at Severance

Concertgoers were treated to an unusual and challenging program at Severance this past weekend, in which well-known music commingled with the lesser known, and with the all but unknown.

Standard practice is to place the best known piece of music at the end, a measure calculated to keep butts in seats until the end of the concert.  This practice was reversed.  The opening work was Beethoven’s Piano  Concerto in G major – my own favorite of the Beethoven Concertos.  The soloist was Murray Perahia, whose recorded cycle of Beethoven concertos with Bernard Haitink is as close to a reference set as can be attained in such oft-recorded works.  His rendition with the Cleveland Orchestra on Saturday night was on the same exalted level, although many details differed from the recorded version – evidence that Perahia’s conception of the music continues to evolve and that final, definitive versions of such variegated works are impossible.  The opening chords to the work were especially rapt and concentrated – despite a bit of noise caused by a late arriving audience member.  One of the shifts in Perahia’s interpretation is that he now emphasizes the rhythmic underpinnings of the first movement over the right-hand filigree, so that the structure of the work emerges with more clarity than before.  This may be disappointing to those who prefer the “sizzle” of rapid runs and double-trills, but it fit the generally broader conception of the piece which reached its zenith during the expansively played cadenza (Beethoven’s own, with a bit of octave doubling that reminded me of Busoni’s version).  The audience was moved enough to offer a bit of spontaneous, in-between-movement applause. The rapt slow movement was truly a dialogue which led seamlessly to the balletic finale.  Franz Welser-Möst and the orchestra provided a simpatico and symphonic accompaniment.  

I noted that a portion of the audience which left the hall at intermission did not return afterwards.  The loss was theirs, for the remainder of the concert was a demonstration of just what this orchestra is capable of.  One of Welser-Möst’s underappreciated talents is for bringing cohesiveness to music which is not often easily followed – bringing order to seeming chaos.  I witnessed it several years ago when he led the orchestra in a riveting performance of Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy.  Such was the case in the even more challenging Transfigured Night of Arnold Schoenberg.   Welser-Möst kept the tempo moving and the balances transparent, and listening to this work – a purely musical retelling of infidelity and forgiveness – I was struck by a metaphor for the tonal center in music.  The tonal center, or the home key, is like a piece of salt-water taffy.  In Beethoven’s G major Concerto it’s stretched only slightly.   In the Schoenberg it was stretched to the absolute limit without being broken.  But in the final work of the program, Edgard Varèse’s Amériques, the tonal center was obliterated within the first few measures.  The work depicts the chaos of life in New York circa 1920, from the vantage point of someone who grew up in a small town in France.  But to portray this chaos, it took perfect control and balance, which were provided by Welser-Möst and the orchestra, augmented with so many extra players that the stage seemed crammed with performers and equipment.  Though what remained of the audience was likely shattered by the cacophony, they recalled the conductor to the stage several times and cheered when he singled out individual sections for recognition. 

My Review of Schnabel's RCA Victor Recordings

Sony has issued Artur Schnabel's complete RCA Victor recordings in a two CD set.  Click here to read my review. 

Pelléas and Mélisande at Severance

In 1935, Artur Rodzinski led the Cleveland Orchestra and singers in a staged production of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, a work which earned the composer a rebuke in his native Russia and which was condemned as “pornophony” by the New York Sun.  Rodzinski’s performances were the American premiere of the opera, putting Cleveland and its orchestra on the cultural map – and marked not just the highlight of the 1934-1935 season, but of Rodzinski’s ten years in Cleveland.  By the time Rodzinski’s tenure with the orchestra ended in 1943, the Cleveland Orchestra was firmly in place as one of the America’s Big Five orchestras – along with the Philadelphia Orchestra (considered by Rachmaninoff to be the world’s finest), the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, and Chicago Symphony. 

Staging an opera - any opera - was a bold move on Rodzinski’s part.  Severance Hall, undisputedly one of the world’s most beautiful concert halls, is also rather small.  Its seating capacity is about 2,000 – against 2,804 at Carnegie Hall and 2,738 at David Geffen Hall.  The stage extensions needed for an opera cut into the available seating.  Fewer seats means fewer tickets sold, which means less money for what is inevitably an expensive production. 

It has been said that art thrives on limitation.  This has certainly proved true in Cleveland.  In 2014, Franz Welser-Most led the orchestra and singers in a creatively staged production of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen – the highlight of that season, which was so popular that it will be repeated next season.  I am confident that the staged performances of Debussy’s Pelléas and Mélisande will be remembered as the primary event of the 2016-2017 season – the “point” that Rachmaninoff spoke of in music, from which everything builds up and recedes. 

Pelléas and Mélisande is not an easy opera to love.  It lacks the spectacle of Wagner’s Ring, the high-note arias of Verdi, the lasciviousness of Richard Strauss’ Salome, the bubbly delight of many of Mozart’s operas.  It doesn’t even have a memorable “tune”.  Instead, the action is largely subjective, the characters are internalized, the music largely relies on texture, sonority, and subtle patterns. 

The staging for this production, by Yuval Sharon, was outstanding and challenging.  The centerpiece, elevated above the main stage, was a large glass structure which made use of lighting effects, fog, CGI projections, electrochromic glass, along with performers to bring the visual aspects of the work to life.  The singers were dressed in simple costumes and remained largely still, while the physical performers in the glass structure largely delineated the stage action – both physical and sub-textual.  It was highly effective, but there were drawbacks.  Between the orchestra, the singers, the glass box, and the supertitles, there were times when the action was hard to follow.  I found it most effective to keep my eyes on the booth, while glancing at the supertitles, and ignoring the orchestra (after all, I see them quite often).  I would even go so far as to say that the singers’ costumes were not necessary. In all, it was a remarkable performance where staging, singing, orchestral playing, and overall convention merged into a compelling whole.

I mentioned above that art thrives on limitations.  That’s why I am perplexed that the powers-that-be at the orchestra have decided against staging Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde at Severance next season.  Tristan could be staged inexpensively, with the use of lights and projections to help set the mood, at far less cost than Vixen and Pelléas were.