Karajan's Bruckner 8th on video

I have long praised Herbert von Karajan's performance of the Bruckner 8th with the Vienna Philharmonic as one of the most sublime recordings ever. Until recently, I had not watched the DVD of him in charge of the same music (made a few years earlier than the studio CD). The DVD was taped at St. Florian in Linz, Austria, with an audience present.

Is there a reason to acquire, or at least watch, the DVD? I am not expert enough to comment on any interpretative differences between the performances, and am not even sure whether they are quite the same version of the symphony (all Bruckner's symphonies except the 6th were revised by the composer and later editors). Musically, I hear no cause to choose one over the other. The sound is surprisingly good on both video and audio discs, though not up to the best to be had today.

At the very least -- yes, the DVD is worth viewing and hearing. Part of the reason is the venue. St. Florian monastery is, like so many Austrian churches and cathedrals, a Baroque visual knockout.

An explosion of color and ornament, yet restrained and balanced. You don't get a lot of close-ups of the performing space in the video disc, but it's there in the background adding beautiful atmosphere. In this monastery Bruckner studied and taught before his date with immortality in Vienna. His human remains are buried here.

Karajan is the most controversial conductor of all time. To over-generalize a bit, listeners love his performances, critics hate them and him. In the U.K. especially, to get your Critics Union card, you must demonstrate a longtime history of Karajan bashing. Their den mother is the noted loon Norman Lebrecht.

The maestro doesn't go in for histrionics on the podium. No making faces à la Bernstein. No jumping and arms raised to the skies. He doesn't jab a finger or his stick at the orchestral section about to make a big statement.

Karajan does use his hands, albeit with restraint. But his face is mask-like, unsmiling. As usual in his later years, he conducts with eyes closed. Watching Karajan in this DVD would probably drive Lebrecht and his colleagues to new heights of loathing. "Look at him, he must be angry at the orchestra! Self-centered impudent snob!"

On the contrary, I think he is telling the orchestra members something like this (and from the evidence, they get the message):

While you are playing this symphony, nothing else on earth matters. Not me, not the audience, not the decor of the hall. Every cell of your being will concentrate on the music until we get to the final note. Every phrase you draw from your instrument will be a prayer directly to Heaven. You are privileged to be expressing one of the great works of the human soul. In it, Anton Bruckner was striving to reach God. I don't care what you believe or don't believe when you get home; for now, you will do whatever is in your power to realize God in sound. A musician can have no higher calling.

Classical beauty, edition 3

I was under the impression that I had written more on this subject, but maybe its importance in my scheme of things had magnified it. Anyway, previous takes are here and here.

You understand, in my appreciation of these lasses my point is that beauty is beauty, whether in performance or the performer's looks, and especially inspiring when the two are combined. It's probably quixotic to imagine, but maybe someone of Generation Y or Generation Z or whatever we're up to will look at this and note that classical musicians can be glamourous, more even than the latest hyped pop stars.

Argentine pianist Ingrid Fliter (above). I have an album in which she plays Chopin, including the Sonata no. 3, Ballade no. 4, and other works of the Romantic master. There is no doubt that she commands the keyboard. Moments of exaltation can be found here. Still, there is something slightly distant and objective that seems wrong for the album's repertory. This is Chopin: what happened to the poetry?

Violinist Janine Jansen. Words will not assemble themselves. Here she is in concert:

Moving right along, next up is Alina Ibragimova, another cracking violinist. I have one of the recordings she made with her frequent musical partner, pianist Cédric Tiberghien. It's a live performance from London's Wigmore Hall, on the Hall's own label.

The violinist par excellence, Chloë Hanslip, has introduced some of us to obscure composers such as Antonio Bazzini and Benjamin Godard:

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein returns for another curtain call. She and cellist Zuill Bailey have collaborated on a complete set of Beethoven's sonatas. Lots of first-class musicians (e.g., Richter and Rostropovich) have had a go at these; Dinnerstein and Bailey are among the most compelling I've heard. And they're recorded in truthful Telarc sound.

It's a tradition by now to close these Classical Beauty posts with Hilary Hahn. In her recent photos, she has lost some of the earlier sensuous pixie look; in her mid-30s, she is very much the woman, and still exceptional.

* * * * *

I will include no new pictures of Yuja Wang. She is starting to annoy me. Not musically -- I treasure her Rachmaninov disc with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra luminously conducted by the late Claudio Abbado. But those short, tight skirts and plunging necklines border on bad taste. Yes, with so many excellent musicians around, a young player is tempted to go to extremes to stand out from the crowd. But Wang is a recognized star these days. If she wants to pose for cheesecake shots as a "civilian," outside the classical milieu, that would perhaps add to the sum of human happiness. On the stage of a concert hall, the tart look is unbecoming.

Disclaimer: All opinions expressed are solely those of the author and for entertainment purposes only. He is not a Certified Classical Beauty Adviser (CCBA™). Please do your own due diligence and consult your  qualified adviser before any appreciation of the persons mentioned. This post has not been approved by the Anti-Sexism Unit of the Federal Speech Control Department.

Herbert Blomstedt's Bruckner 8th

To  relieve the tedium and stress of shifting house, I got me a recommended recording of Bruckner's Symphony no. 8. (Even for Bruckner, the piece has an especially complicated history of revisions, including some made long after the composer had passed from the scene; this seems to be the pure Robert Haas edition -- as if I could tell).

The recommendation was by Stephen Chakwin, in the May/June 2008 American Record Guide. To my way of thinking, Mr. Chakwin is the best reviewer of classical music in the business today. (He has another business -- he's a lawyer.)

The recording is of a live concert with Herbert Blomstedt conducting the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. It was his farewell as the music director after several years of leading the orchestra in the '90s. I was in the audience for this same crew in Tucson when they were on tour.

My reaction on hearing it for the first time was a mixture of exhilaration and disappointment. The orchestra is world-class, although many other first-rate ensembles have played the symphony. Blomstedt is a gifted musician who doesn't indulge in eccentricities or exaggerated point-making. Many felicities of the score have been carefully polished. Strings and horns are partners, not adversaries, their colors mixing in extraordinary ways. For once, the harp in the Adagio actually seems to be part of the fabric of the music, not embroidery.

So what was disappointing? Comparisons are odious, but who can avoid them? My favorite versions have been Furtwängler (1944) and Karajan (1988), both -- interestingly -- with the Vienna Philharmonic. God bless Maestro Blomstedt, but he is no Furtwängler and he is no Karajan. Blomstedt's style struck me as stern, with too much stop-and-start even for music that incorporates pauses as a key element.

 
Of course I often change my mind after a first listen. I was keen to play the recording again after two days, a good sign.

Sure enough, I had a sudden insight that came to me long after it should have, much later than I expect most Bruckner enthusiasts have rumbled it. Bruckner lived and worked in the Romantic period of the late 19th century, but he is not a Romantic composer. (Even Symphony no. 4, nicknamed "Romantic," is at most so only in comparison with Bruckner's others.) The musical landscape at the time was divided into opposing camps, followers of Brahms and followers of Wagner. Bruckner, as I have read many times, practically worshiped Wagner. But the stylistic association somehow always escaped me.

You can play Bruckner in a romantic way, as Karl Böhm (also with Vienna!) and Bruno Walter did, and achieve wonders. But I've finally "gotten it" that Bruckner modeled his expression after Wagner. There is a difference, though: Bruckner absorbed Wagner's brilliant dramatism, but overlaid it with a spiritual dimension that was deeply important to him.

A good deal of Blomstedt's interpretation snapped into place the second time I heard his recording. Still, the great Adagio is too insistent and unloving -- if only he had treated it with the sweet delicacy he brought to the trio (the soft middle section) of the Scherzo! In a performance like this, we need relaxation and gentility in the midst of the rocky climb to beatitude.

The recording is remarkably true, especially considering it was taken in a live performance, probably one performance (many live recordings are patchworks from different nights). As Mr. Chakwin says, "You will have as close to a Bruckner orchestra in your home as your sound equipment can deliver."

The producer has insisted on the typically idiotic practice for live recordings of including applause -- both before and after the concert. At least he had the decency to put it on separate tracks so you can program it out.

La belle Lara

Rarely, rarely comes the spirit of delight, wrote Shelley. It came to me via Lara Fabian's concert DVD titled En toute intimité. It could be translated In All Intimacy -- but that doesn't sound right in English. However, everything else about the disc sounds exactly right.

Lara Fabian is a big star in France, perhaps in Europe generally. Since she sings in French and Italian, and there is something quintessentially French in her manner (albeit she was  raised in Belgium and now based in Québec), she is all but unknown in the U.S. I caught a few of hit songs from her albums streamed on the Internet, in mediocre sound quality and mostly with the overblown amplified beat-heavy arrangements producers think are necessary to sell recordings these days.

Even so, her vocal delivery impressed me enough to want to hear more and in better sound. Hence I placed this DVD at the head of my Netflix queue, despite its tag "Very long wait." So it was, about a month. Maybe the company had to order the disc from its French unit.

From the first chapter of En toute intimité, taped at Paris's Olympia theatre in 2003, I could tell this would contain the spirit of delight.

First off, the "intimité" of the title was well earned. Lara was accompanied only by a few acoustic instruments: two violins, a viola, and a cello (all played by shockingly beautiful women) plus piano -- the pianist captured the mood of the performance perfectly. The stage set designer and lighting director created a poetic ambience to frame the music.

Lara was, of course, almost always the center of attention and deserved it. Beyond the range of her voice, she is as much an acting singer or singing actress as an opera star. Every number is a dramatic scene. She can take all the close-ups the video editor wants to give her: lyrics play out in her face.

Her stage manner is highly kinetic at times, but she doesn't horse around with the typical histrionic gestures of so many pop stars (e.g., holding the microphone like a staff and swinging her arms wide in the pose of Moses parting the Red Sea). She suits the action to the word, the word to the action.

In this concert at least, her musical taste never falters. The songs are romantic, often sad; she gathers you inside them. They include a knockout version of Serge Lama's "Je suis malade," the aria "Addio del passato" from La Traviata, and "Immortelle," co-written by herself, in a performance that lives up to its name.

Also in the line-up is Jacques Brel's "Voir un ami pleurer" ("To See a Friend Cry"). I confess to having mixed feelings about Brel. I don't care for the way he speeds up during so many arrangements, or his habit of frequently moving to the front of the stage, backing up, and heading downstage again, like a man hesitating over whether to cross a road with heavy traffic. But he wrote some terrific songs, including "Voir ... ." I've heard lots of moving versions of it, and Lara's is certainly among the finest. If it doesn't squeeze your heart, check to see if you are alive.

Presumably the DVD has English titles, but I didn't turn them on. It meant that I failed to understand some of the lyrics, but I didn't want the aesthetics of the program cluttered up with written words.

I don't claim that Lara's way with songs is more spontaneous or sincere than any other performer's. This is show business, and every bit of vocal style and stage movement has been polished during rehearsals and other concerts. She may or may not actually feel the meaning of each number, but she makes you, as part of her audience, feel it.

Lara Fabian is a star to fall in love with. Obviously, not "real world" love of the kind we experience in our ordinary lives if we're lucky. It's love prompted by artifice, talent, attractiveness, glamour, and lovely surroundings. Sometimes l'amour is like that.

Concert: Alice Sara Ott plays Liszt at Kennedy Center

This time I will resist the temptation to begin the posting with a diatribe about Washington's vulgar Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, its Stalinist mausoleum architecture, its flashy red carpet ... uh-oh. I can't help myself.

But the center of attention is young pianist Alice Sara Ott, who dropped by the other night to play Liszt's Piano Concerto no. 2 with the National Symphony Orchestra. My wife and I sat in Row B -- that's right, second row from the stage, directly behind conductor Neeme Järvi and the mighty Steinway that almost (but thankfully, not quite) blocked the view of Ms. Ott.

Alice Sara Ott radiates an attention-capturing quality that not even her publicity shots quite convey. Still photos don't reveal the animation, the apparent moods that cross her face like clouds. A Eurasian -- German and Japanese ancestry -- she projects a rare exotic allure. ("There is no great beauty that hath not a touch of strangeness about it," Francis Bacon said.)

Stage presence? Enough to spare. A smile that could illuminate the auditorium on its own. She wore a sleeveless purple silk, floor-length dress ... and from my almost front-row seat, I noted with surprise that she pressed the piano pedals with bare feet. 

Is all this calculated? To some extent, almost surely. She's an actress as well as a musician, knowing how to make the most of her sylph-like figure (I doubt she weighs more than 110 pounds) and gestures. She may enjoy the feeling of the pedals under her feet, or knows that it gives her an eccentric vibe that's useful for journalists writing about her, or both. Who cares?

A strain of puritanism among classical music audiences deplores concern with such "irrelevances" as looks and demeanor. Those who hold this view would be just as glad if the soloist were hidden behind a screen, as I understand is now standard practice in auditions for orchestra players. Fiddlesticks, as violinists are wont to say (or won't say).  

It's called performance. A performance is the whole, the big picture, the Gestalt. Ott isn't the first glamourpuss of either sex to dramatize a performance, and she won't be the last.

Furthermore, Ott's attractive manner extends to -- excuse me? Her piano playing? How can you interrupt thus, when I was just warming to my subject. All right, all right.

Franz Liszt's two (?) concertos are rarely played and recorded. I'm not sure I ever even heard no. 2 before. It's not that they're bad -- just that Liszt was a pianist to the bone, like Chopin, and the orchestral part of the score is no more than accompaniment. Most people who appreciate Liszt would rather hear his music, shall we say, unencumbered by an orchestra around its neck.

You ask how well Ott played her part? Listen, friend, I don't know how any human being can play Liszt. It takes fantastic prestidigitation. Those machine gun-paced notes! Those hand crossings! Keyboard sweeps! Impossible. It also takes a sense of when to go inward, caressing the keys to melt the heart.

All I can tell you is, Alice Sara Ott took the piece by storm and, to my untutored ear, it was one of the most exciting performances I've ever heard. Other pianists might have done it differently, perhaps "better" (whatever that means). It doesn't matter to me. I'll never forget that brief (less than half-hour) concerto.

The first piece on the program was Kodaly's Suite from Háry János. I've heard a few recordings of it that didn't leave much of an impression, but in live performance -- and Järvi seems to have a feel for the Hungarian and Czech idiom -- it was sensational. The score includes unusual instruments for a classical composition, including the celesta and xylophone.

After the Liszt and intermission, the program concluded with Prokofiev's Suite from Romeo and Juliet. It was a little bit of a letdown, and I generally love Prokofiev. But Järvi didn't give it much breathing room. The "Shakespeare" play is both a romance and a tragedy, and has a vein of violence running through it, but this reading downplayed the romance disappointingly. There was a shade too much brutality. Järvi drove the horses hard and put 'em away wet.

Speaking of Maestro Järvi, I have listened to recordings of him conducting since the 1980s, and went through a period when I thought he was one of the world's greatest conductors. I was heard to say that he should have gotten Chicago after Solti or Berlin after Karajan. Now I think my opinion of him was inflated at the time, but there's no question in my mind that he is very talented (as is his son, also a conductor, Paavo Järvi).

He was energetic on the podium, but when he turned to face the audience, I was a little saddened: he is old. Well, it happens to all of us, sooner or later, if we live long enough. But orchestra conductors are a hardy breed, and their careers often don't end at the age when others retire. I believe Stokowski was about 95 when he made his last recordings. I wish Neeme Järvi many years of further service to the cause of music.

Sir John Tavener

Every age has its outstanding artists. But among those are few who seem to listen to their inner voices more than to their time and place. Even fewer are those who can convey to a wide audience what stirs in their souls. Sir John Tavener (1944-2013), who passed over yesterday, was one of those. His musical accomplishment was both intensely personal and intensely impersonal, opening vistas in sound that we are deaf to until they are revealed.

Like most listeners, I discovered his music through his popular (well, "popular" as things go in the world of classical music) The Protecting Veil. It was astonishing to find a contemporary composer who seemed to ignore the kind of stuff written by academics in their nests as "composers in residence" at universities, but instead anchored his aesthetic in the traditions of worship.

Tavener, an Englishman, was famously a convert to Orthodox Christianity, and his work obviously has a kinship with Orthodox church music. There were other influences, including a difficult life, which involved dodgy health; he nearly died of a heart attack in 2007. If anything his worldly misfortunes seem to have further driven him toward transcendence.

I have collected quite a few recordings of Tavener's music. Tonight, after reading of his departure from this world, I listened to Svyati, for string orchestra and chorus, and The Hidden Treasure, for string quartet with Steven Isserlis playing the cello part. (He has attracted star-quality musicians to perform his compositions.)

Reading the obits in The Guardian and The Telegraph, I was surprised to learn that he first attracted attention in the '60s as a conventionally rebellious author of -- in the words of Tom Service, writing in The Guardian -- pieces that were "tumultuous, chaotic, modernist, and radical." Equally surprising is the large number of works he has created since then in his Orthodox-influenced phase. I look forward to getting acquainted with those I don't know.

The pianist Artur Schnabel said that Beethoven's last sonatas were greater than they could be played. In a sense that is true of what Tavener has given us. No music, Beethoven's or his, can fully represent infinite longings. Tavener's seems ancient, but without a touch of antiquarianism -- he uses the full resources of modern instruments and performers. Yet we are not listening either to now or any past "now." The eternal has cracked the shell of time.

John Tavener. Rest in peace, and in the music of God.

Zenph master

Zenph Studios, which I wrote about here, continues its "re-creations" of historical recordings. Re-creations is no exaggeration -- the old recordings, which can make it hard to fully appreciate the original performances, are made into computer programs that play modern instruments (so far, piano), in sound caught with today's first-class microphones and mixing boards. You are there with the player, and vice versa.

Except for a CD re-creation of Art Tatum in a 1949 recital, I've had trouble warming to the Zenph concerts. The Rachmaninoff playing Rachmaninoff disc is interesting, but it's hard to believe that what we hear is anything like his playing that made him one of the great virtuosos of his time. Glenn Gould's much-celebrated jazzy performance of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations is just not to my taste.

Now we have keyboard whiz par excellence Oscar Peterson in a collection titled Unmistakable. The label says the selections on the disc were recorded in the '70s and '80s and not previously released commercially. After going through the usual Zenph digital processing, the signal was converted back into analog and fed into a whopper of a piano -- a Bösendorfer, among the world's hugest and potentially loudest, a piano the liner notes tell us Peterson favored. The results were recorded in an Abbey Road studio.

No doubt about it, Peterson can wow you with his technique on the ivories. His legerdemain has an almost effortless air. In Unmistakable he switches tempos and styles often in the same piece. Want to hear nimble fingers?  Listen to him tear through "Back Home Again in Indiana" like a freight train whose engine's brakes have failed. Or "Take the A Train" and "Caravan" on the Ellington medley -- you hardly believe what you're hearing even as you are.

So what's to complain about? Maybe nothing unless you're a grouch like me. I seem to remember from his other, accompanied albums, that Peterson could play a ballad with warmth and sensitivity when the spirit moved him. It doesn't here. To be fair, he didn't realize at the time he was recording for posterity. Maybe these were just sort of warm-up exercises.

Still, sticking to Unmistakable, you'd hardly know any of these items are songs. They are just chord progressions on which he hangs flamboyant decor. Except for a few interior patches, they sound like mere excuses to show off his unquestionable dexterity. Virtuosity is of course important for a jazz musician, but it's not everything. Creating a mood, showing us some of the mystery of creation, drawing from us feelings we didn't know we had or haven't experienced for a long time -- those are equally important elements of jazz.

That's what I miss here, and often in this artist's playing. He's a finely tweaked, German sports car of a musician giving glossy versions of platitudes. At his wildest Thelonious Monk couldn't have played with the kaleidoscopic sparkle Peterson brought to his Bösendorfer. All Monk did was take us into new worlds that we could never have imagined without him.

To end on a positive note: The recording brings Peterson to life in a way not heard before -- the best contemporary recording is streets ahead of what was possible even in the 1970s. No fan of Peterson (1925-2007) should be without this. And many people who respond to music will enjoy hearing what the human mind and hands in close collaboration can produce in jazz pianism.

No surrender to MP3 ... but a peace agreement (2)

When last heard from (previous posting), I was banging on about MP3 downloads. My thesis up to that point was that, with marginal exceptions, MP3 represented a boon for spoken voice and electronic music available in no other format.

Now we must deal with the third category, acoustic music. That is, unamplified and unprocessed.

In my digs, that means -- mostly but not exclusively -- classical music.

While there's no question that MP3 bit condensation degrades sound quality, sometimes that doesn't matter much even for high-quality classical music.

That's often so with historical recordings. For those, a good free-download site is Liber Liber, based in Italy. As a certified audiophile, I'm not generally fond of old recordings, but for those who can overlook sonic deficiencies there are treasures to be found here. Even if you don't know Italian (and my own command of the language is primitive), it's easy to navigate and find whatever you are interested in.

For instance, I downloaded Bruckner's Symphony no. 8 (Sinfonia n° 8 in Do minore) with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler in ... wait for it ... 1944. Considering the time and place, it seems miraculous that such a performance was given at all, let alone recorded. Vienna, thankfully, was spared the destruction visited on Berlin despite the German occupation; still, nobody knew that at the time, and it must have been a harrowing period. I suppose it says something about the resilience of the human spirit that great art lived on.

I've only listened to it once, but I'm impressed how Furtwängler's famous tempo changes -- although in this case they seem subtle adjustments -- helped create performances that were organic, like a living breathing being.

What about modern MP3 recordings? The most fruitful source I've found is that derived from live performances at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The art palace was founded by the nouveau riche Ms. Stewart Gardner in the 19th century, partly as a gesture of contempt toward Boston's aristocracy ("where the Lowells talk only to Cabots, and the Cabots talk only to God"). But it's now part of Boston's cultural mainstream.

The Gardner museum has the clout to attract notable and up-and-coming musicians. I have been grateful to hear and download quite a few of their recordings, including fine performances by excellent but relatively little known string quartets -- the Belcea Quartet, the Orion String Quartet, and especially the remarkable Borromeo String Quartet.

But, to get back to our topic, what about the sound quality of these MP3s?

 

Well, they're not up to the standards of good "Red Book" (16-bit) CDs, let alone Super Audio CDs. At their best they can be enjoyed and appreciated. Instrumental timbres are often surprisingly realistic. But something is missing. It's like the difference between a gray-scale picture and a color picture. Or, for a different metaphor, the sound is "flat" as if projected on a two-dimensional screen instead of having front-to-back depth -- like looking at a scene with one eye rather than both.

Probably all this won't matter in a few years. Full-spectrum download software, such as FLAC, already exists. I don't understand how it works and, anyway, it's currently used only by a few companies for paid downloads. I'm not even sure most CD players can decode it. But I expect lossless downloads will become the standard. Meanwhile, enjoy what's there, however imperfect.

No surrender to MP3 ... but a peace agreement

 

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Your blogger swore eternal enmity with compressed sound files. Quote: "... the worst invention of the new century, the Satan-inspired MP3/iPod system. It has nearly destroyed the appetite for quality. Ten out of 10 audiophiles agree that owning an iPod should be a crime. The iPod is a step backward in music reproduction, and its devotees are Cro-Magnons who should devolve as fast as possible into amoebas."

Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of sound files available on the Web use the MP3 coding. Over time I encountered many downloadable recordings that I would have liked to listen to at a convenient time and place or, in some cases, burn to CD for keeping. Eventually I asked myself: was I being dogmatic? After all, I hadn't actually heard many MP3 files, and those were played on poor equipment.

So I began to explore the world of MP3 downloads. I needed to learn how to burn an MP3 file to a CD -- that's how ignorant I was. Before long I had to admit that MP3s played through a good sound system don't necessarily sound awful, and that there is a lot of worthwhile material available no other way.

Don't get me wrong: I am not a new convert more Catholic than the Pope. You won't catch me with wires running out of my ears to an iPod held in my lap. I don't have any funny MP3 playback gear like the ones you wear around your wrist like a watch. My listening is via my regular home sound system, or sometimes my car's CD player.

Lossy (compressed) software such as MP3 is less accurate than lossless software -- that's a fact of life. What we're talking about here is how much less accurate, and how much it matters in listening to various kinds of sources.

To keep things simple, let's categorize sources as speaking (not singing) voice, electronic music, and acoustic music.

 

Voice. Plenty of interviews, discussions, and dramatic readings can be downloaded ... mainly, I am sorry to say, from the dreaded BBC, particularly Radio 3 and Radio 4. The compression is not a problem; the sound of the voice may not be accurate, but in almost all cases, who cares? The only time it might make a scrap of difference is if you are hearing a John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, or any other great actor whose nuances of speech are part of the performance.

Electronic music. This is a deliberately broad category that comprises rock, electronica, trance, anything that passes through an amplifier or tonal processor. The compressed files are less close to the original sound than with uncompressed files, but the difference is meaningless. I know what an unamplified violin or guitar sounds like, but an electric guitar (let alone a synthesizer) is capable of a Texas-sized range of auditory effects.

Here is where MP3 is most valuable. I've discovered a number of web sites with downloadable music (uncopyrighted or with a "creative commons" license), so it's perfectly legal to copy music from them. Particularly interesting is the live music archive of the Internet Archive. Apparently any musician(s) can put their stuff on this site, and you can listen to it in streaming format or save it to a compact disc, your hard drive, a flash drive, or any other storage medium.

Not surprisingly, a vast percentage of the performers and bands are unknown unknowns. I've listened to some, and most are decent but undistinguished, although I expect there is gold in them there hills if you are willing to expend the time to find it.

But a few "name" bands are represented. Naturally, the Grateful Dead (8,691 items, presumably all or most being complete concerts). Here is the modern equivalent of the cassette tapes Deadheads passed around to one another in the '80s, the main difference being that digital recordings can be reproduced any number of times without losing any fidelity, while cassette sound degenerated with each generation of copying.

I still have mixed feelings about the Grateful Dead, incidentally. When they were at the top of their game or anywhere near it (mostly in their earlier years), they were hypnotically captivating (and band members wrote some damn good songs). The Dead were about, among other things, improvisation -- then and now, rare among popular groups. They were a jazz ensemble wrapped up in a rock band.

But when their hearts weren't in it -- and let's face it, no matter how much they enjoyed playing, by their 6,000th concert some of the thrill had to be gone -- a certain sameness and playing by numbers crept in. Still, it's marvelous that their career is documented and available at this site.

Also represented are The New Riders of the Purple Sage (391 items), originally an offshoot of the Dead that took a turn toward country. And it seems they're still going strong, with concert recordings from as recently as 2009. None of the original members are in the band, but their replacement personnel are cracking fine musicians in their own right and sound a lot like the early New Riders without slavishly copying them.

Another useful site is NPR's Live in Concert series. Many of the "concerts" are only tasting menus of three or four songs, but some by well-known performers occupy an hour or more. The only drawbacks are (1) the between-numbers chatter from the stage and (2) the yelling, whooping, and loud obnoxious behavior of the audiences.

For lovers of the truly esoteric, there is last.fm, which seems to be based in the U.K. Their musical offerings are classified by descriptions such as "noise."

This posting is long enough for one go, an indication of what's out there for downloading -- and of course there are many sites I haven't mentioned. I'll save the final category, acoustic music on MP3, for the next entry.

Concert report, take 2

I was web surfing today and ran across -- excuse me? Oh. Right you are. I threatened yesterday to describe the National Symphony Concert, but got carried away venting my spleen about the Kennedy Center. That's no small feat, if I say so myself, since I have only a vague idea where my spleen is located.

First on the program was the Elgar Cello Concerto, perhaps the most sadly beautiful or beautifully sad piece of music I know. It surely ranks among Elgar's four or five greatest works, and that's saying something. I have several recordings of it: Isserlis/Hickox, Mørk/Rattle, Starker/Slatkin, and of course the classic du Pré/Barbirolli. Probably others I can't recall at the moment.

The soloist in this concert was Alisa Weilerstein. I had never heard of her before, but from my perch in the third row from the stage I had a good visual and emotional connection with her performance. Weilerstein quickly convinced me she is in the first rank of today's cellists. Her understanding of Elgar's sensibility was obvious, enhanced by bowing that produced some marvelous coloration (without going into eccentricity). A wonderful experience.

Following the intermission we had the pièce de résistance -- Shostakovich's Symphony no. 5. I've heard it many times on recordings but it always amazes me, and listening from row 3 to an orchestra of musical overachievers playing it live is thrilling.

The backstory of this symphony is well known. Shostakovich in the '30s had worked for years, I believe, pouring his lifeblood into the phantasmagorical Symphony no. 4. Even before its first performance, it was slammed in no uncertain terms in a review in Pravda, an early version of the Washington Post. Shostakovich withdrew it, and the symphony was not heard in concert until 1961.

Shostakovich had every reason to despair. At best, his music would never be played in the Soviet Union. If Comrade Stalin were in a humorous mood, the composer might have been separated from his family and sent to a Siberian labor camp to chop logs in sub-zero temperatures. As far as I know, no musician was ever hauled to the Lubyanka and shot for writing an unacceptable score, but Shostakovich could not have known that at the time.

The Fifth was his bid to reform himself (in the eyes of the authorities); he even described it as "a Soviet artist's response to just criticism." Astonishingly, he pulled it off -- it was received enthusiastically, yet is still is permeated with his unique musical personality. 

The Shostakovich Fifth is a masterpiece, and to be able to hear it in a splendid live performance was a privilege. The orchestration is equal (in a different way, of course) to such masters as Ravel and Mahler.

Part of why it was accepted by the Soviet Establishment was the thrilling, almost euphoric finale that they believed symbolized the inevitable triumph of Soviet Communism over all enemies. Ever since, critics and musicologists have debated about its meaning. Many insist that the apparent celebration is hollow and ironic, a secret message of dissent.

No doubt a skillful conductor can create that impression, but I don't think it was Shostakovich's intent. The stakes were too high. He knew this would be his one chance to redeem himself. The commissars were vicious but not altogether stupid, and the slightest hint of ambiguity might have put paid to Shostakovich's musical career permanently. 

Conductor Christoph Eschenbach didn't seem to think the finale was a coded protest either; he had it played straightforwardly, which was powerful enough, like the entire piece. It probably didn't hurt that many of the orchestra musicians had played for its earlier conductor, Mstislav Rostropovich. "Slava" wasn't a distinguished conductor, but by general consent he had a special insight for Shostakovich, whom he had known personally, and had played the premiere of his Cello Concerto no. 2.

This is the second time I've attended a concert in which Eschenbach led the orchestra of which he is the music director. I'm impressed with him. He seems committed, musically intelligent, and able to communicate his ideas to the orchestra. I have no idea why he and the Philadelphia Orchestra parted on a sour note, but it's hard to imagine it was over his talent. More likely some personality thing or getting on the wrong side of the musicians' union.

Concert report: National Symphony Orchestra plays the Shostakovich 5th

I wasn't going to post about this experience. Really. Who cares about a concert if they weren't there to hear it?

But at the moment, I haven't anything else to write about except the impending dissolution of Western civilization, and that would bring me down. 

Life goes on. Last night I set my course for the Kennedy Center in Washington for a National Symphony Orchestra concert. My wife was out of town and I was tired of my own company, and besides, I was attracted by the program: the Elgar Cello Concerto and Shostakovich Symphony no. 5.

Is there -- hang on; this is peripheral so I should frame it in parentheses. 

(Is there a concert venue anywhere in the universe uglier than the Kennedy Center? Probably, but I hope never to see it. The Kennedy Center is the nadir of 1960s architectural vulgarity. It should have a sign above each of its two entrances: "Abandon taste, all ye who enter here."

(I should add, parenthetically within parentheses, which requires brackets: [Unlike New York's Lincoln Center, this monstrosity is not dedicated to the refined arts. Yes, it has a concert hall where the orchestra plays, and an opera house; it used to have a movie theater; it still has a musical theater which has offered a comedy, Shear Madness, continuously since the age of the Pharaohs. Our nation's capital doesn't have enough of an audience to sustain a center for highbrow culture, and needs to pull in the tourist crowd with blockbuster shows, including Broadway musicals in the opera theater.]

(The Kennedy Center is so "cold" and crude you can't imagine it if you haven't been there. The interior walls are vast, Forest Lawn-like slabs of white marble; the carpet throughout the corridors garish red. The centerpiece of the decor is a Stalinist, supersized gold-colored bust of JFK. They are constantly adding more video screens and posters throughout the halls, maybe recognizing that anything which distracts you from the interior has to be an improvement.

(There's a pleasant terrace outside where you can enjoy views of the Potomac and planes on approach to or climb from Reagan National when the weather isn't too hot or cold, that is, perhaps 10 percent of the time in Washington. But then you turn around and see the Kennedy Center's exterior. More mausoleum marble walls, incised here and there with quotations from His Holiness John F. Kennedy ("ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU. ASK ME HOW MARILYN MONROE WAS IN THE SACK."). The roof is supported by bizarre metallic beams painted a mustard shade. 

(What vision did the architect have? A James Bond movie production design? 

(That concludes our parenthetical diversion. I see I have already exhausted your patience. I will write about the concert itself in the next post.)