Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

Bayreuth 2018

Wagner Rebooted. The New Yorker, Aug. 20, 2018.

Still Wagnerian

Wagnerism may not look much shorter than it did in January, but I have managed to excise more than eighty thousand words.

Fifth Bayreuth pilgrimage

I passed through Bayreuth to see Yuval Sharon's new production of Lohengrin and last year's Meistersinger, by Barrie Kosky. A report will appear in a future issue of The New Yorker. In keeping with my composer-grave habit, this year I not only paid homage to the Meister, the Meisterin, and their dogs but also went to the Stadtfriedhof to see the resting places of Liszt, Hans Richter, and various other Wagners. Above lies Richter. An attempt to find the grave of Oskar Panizza, author of Das Liebeskonzil and "Bayreuth und Homosexualität," was unsuccessful.

Seldom does the ordinary operagoer have the opportunity to see stars just before they go onstage, but in a parking lot near the Festspielhaus a fortunate few caught a glimpse of the canines playing the roles of Marke and Molly in Kosky's Meistersinger. That production opens with a delightful pantomime of a day at Wahnfried, circa 1875.

Incidentally, last year saw the publication of Franziska Polanski's Richard Wagners Hunde, in which the history of Wagner's dogs is told in full.

For the first time I took a tour of the Mystic Abyss, the legendary orchestra pit at the Festspielhaus. How the man thought of this arrangement — and knew that it would work — is beyond understanding.

I was sad to find that the Markgrafen Buchhandlung, the book and music store opposite the Goldener Anker, had closed. Its replacement, Cosima, seems to be faring no better.

To achieve the requisite overstuffing of my luggage, I went to the Antiquariat Walter Bösch, where, amid a lavish collection of old Wagner books, scores, and programs, I found Max Kalbeck's monograph on the Parsifal première.

Sadly, I will miss Boybands Forever.

My first night in Bayreuth coincided with the recent lunar eclipse. A crowd of Bayreuthers gathered on a hill above the Festspielhaus to observe the event. In the end, the Blutmond was mostly hidden by long-hanging clouds, but it was a pleasant hour in the dark.

Until the Ring in 2020....

Previously: Bayreuth Pilgrimage, Third Bayreuth Pilgrimage, Snapshots from Bayreuth.

At the grave of various Wagners

At the grave of Franz Liszt

Previously: At the graves of various people.

New Boulez

The Dutch pianist Ralph van Raat has received permission to give the world-première performances of a previously unheard early work by Pierre Boulez: the Prélude, Toccata et Scherzo, from 1944. The first performance will take place at the Paris Philharmonie on September 8; van Raat will then play it on the occasion of his Carnegie Hall début, on Oct. 24, and in Rotterdam on Nov. 25. Van Raat reports that the work begins in with gestures reminiscent variously of Bartók and Messiaen, but that hints of Boulez's mature style become increasingly evident in the breaking down of melodic material into cells. Aside from the historical interest, van Raat believes that the piece will be a valuable addition to the twentieth-century piano repertory. Let's hope a recording ensues.

Nightafternight playlist

New and recent releases of interest.

— Haydn, Piano Sonatas Nos. 49, 50, 32, 40; Paul Lewis (Harmonia Mundi)

— Bernstein, A Quiet Place, adapted by Garth Edwin Sunderland; Claudia Boyle, Joseph Kaiser, Gordon Bintner, Lucas Meachem, Kent Nagano conducting the Montreal Symphony and Chorus (Decca)

— Bach, Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord; Rachel Barton Pine, Jory Vinikour (Cedille)

— Michel Lambert, Leçons de Ténèbres des Mercredi, Jeudi et Vendredi Saints; Marc Mauillon, Myriam Rignol, Thibaut Roussel, Marouan Mankar-Bennis (Harmonia Mundi)

— Benet Casablancas, Dove of Peace, Homage to Picasso, Octeto, Four Darks in Red, Mokusei Gardens, ...der graue Wald sich unter ihm schüttelte, Dance, Song and Celebration; Felix Krieger conducting the London Sinfonietta (Sony)

— Christian Wolff, John, David, Rhapsody; Lothar Zagrosek conducting the SWR Symphony Baden-Baden and Freiburg, Petr Kotik, Peter Rundel, and Roland Kluttig conducting the Ostravská banda (New World)

— Songs and Poems: works of Andreas Dohmen, Hans Thomalla, Walter Zimmermann, Wolfgang Rihm, Aldo Clementi; trio accanto (Wergo)

— Shostakovich, Symphonies Nos. 4 and 11; Andris Nelsons conducting the Boston Symphony (DG)

Bookshelf

New and recent publications of interest.

Gundula Kreuzer, Curtain, Gong, Steam: Wagnerian Technologies of Nineteenth-Century Opera (UC Press)

Jamie Bernstein, Famous Father Girl: A Memoir of Growing Up Bernstein (Harper Collins)

Randol Schoenberg, ed., The "Doctor Faustus" Dossier: Arnold Schoenberg, Thomas Mann, and Their Contemporaries, 1930–1951 (UC Press)

Susan Tomes, Speaking the Piano (Boydell and Brewer)

Emily Abrams Ansari, The Sound of a Superpower: Musical Americanism and the Cold War (Oxford UP)

Naomi André, Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement (University of Illinois Press)

Brian Olewnick, Keith Rowe (powerHouse)

Katherine K. Preston, Opera for the People: English-Language Opera and Women Managers in Late 19th-Century America (Oxford UP)

Ojai 2018

From the Ashes. The New Yorker, July 2, 2018.

Thomas Mann returns to LA

A Cultural Comment on the New Yorker website, June 22, 2018.

A Cassandra Miller moment

Philip the Wanderer, named for the brilliant Philip Thomas, who plays here.

Miscellany

On June 24, the New Opera Days Ostrava festival will give the belated world premiere of Thy Kingdom Come, by the pioneering Czech microtonal composer Alois Hába. Completed in 1942, the work draws inspiration from the Anthroposophical writings of Rudolf Steiner, intermingling mystical and socialist themes; Act II features a colloquy among Christ, Ariman, and Lucifer. The program also includes Salvatore Sciarrino’s Luci mie traditrici, new pieces by Daniel Ting-Cheung Lo and Rudolf Komorous, and a rendition of Julius Eastman's graphic score Macle.... Eamonn Quinn, the director of the Louth Contemporary Music Society in Ireland, has won the Belmont Prize for Contemporary Music. He will receive the prize at the outset of Louth's Book of Hours festival (June 22-23), which will include new works by Sciarrino, Michael Pisaro, Rebecca Saunders, and Karen Tanaka.... Earlier this season I wrote about Augustin Hadelich's striking performances of the Britten Violin Concerto with the Detroit Symphony. Marc Geelhoed, the ace director of Detroit's pioneering free webcasts, informs me that the video is online.... I wrote about last year's solstice celebrations at The Tank, in Rangely, Colorado.  This year's edition includes performances by Ryan Ruehlen and Ron Miles.... Also on the solstice, Make Music NY will offer its usual welter of sounds, including Mass Appeal concerts for banjos, buckets, French horns, guitars, harmonicas, mandolins, and ukuleles.... Ethan Iverson and Miranda Cuckson perform a striking program at Spectrum in NYC on June 24: music of Louise Talma, George Walker, Martino, the ubiquitous Sciarrino, and Josiah Catalan.... Ethan wrote a beautiful memorial to the great Lorraine Gordon, grande dame of the Village Vanguard.... Read Joshua Kosman and Lisa Hirsch on the latest iteration of the San Francisco Opera's Ring. I caught the Götterdämmerung, and was gripped throughout. I may have heard some parts better sung, but I've never seen the work acted with such verve and invention; Daniel Brenna's Siegfried was especially impressive in this regard.

For Gennady Rozhdestvensky

The formidable Russian conductor has died at the age of eighty-seven. One of his signal feats was leading the world première of Alfred Schnittke's First Symphony in 1974 — a venture that would have been daring in any context, but was particularly courageous in Brezhnev's Soviet Union. His Soviet-era recording of the Shostakovich Fourth, embedded above, remains incomparable; listen to the strings at 14:35.

Ustvolskaya speaks

Thought of the day

"It's astounding how easily everything collapses."

          —Victor Klemperer, March 10, 1933

Nightafternight playlist

New and recent releases of interest.

— James Tenney, Harmonium; Scordatura Ensemble (New World)

— Philip Venables, Below the Belt; David Hoyle, the London Sinfonietta, Phoenix Piano Trio, Ligeti Quartet, Leigh Melrose, Nick Blackburn, Melinda Maxwell, Richard Baker (NMC)

— Gillian Whitehead, Shadows Crossing Water; Stamic Quartet, Jindřích Pazdera, Vilém Veverka, Patricia Goodson (Rattle)

— Josh Modney, Engage: works of Kate Soper, Eric Wubbels, Sam Pluta, Taylor Brook, Anthony Braxton, Modney, and Bach (New Focus)

— Bethany Beardslee sings Schubert, Schumann, Brahms; with Richard Goode and Lois Shapiro (Bridge)

— Vaughan Williams, Symphonies Nos. 5 and 6; Andrew Manze conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (Onyx)

— John Adams, Doctor Atomic; Gerald Finley, Julia Bullock, Brindley Sherratt, Jennifer Johnston, Aubrey Allicock, Samuel Sakker, Andrew Staples, Adams conducting the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony (Nonesuch, out June 29)

The Ustvolskaya Sonatas

Markus Hinterhäuser at the Ojai Festival 2018 — one of the more stupendous things I've witnessed in recent years.

In praise of Astrid Varnay

A Tale of Two Sopranos, New Yorker web site, June 6, 2018.

An LHL moment

Courtesy of New Zealand rock eminence Shayne Carter.

Zu Roß!

A bay colt named Wagnerian, jockeyed by Yuichi Fukunaga, has won the Toshio Yushun, or Japanese Derby. The Bayreuthian equine "parlayed clear sailing and firm footing to a half-length victory," according to one report. Congratulations, Wagnerian!