Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja returns to Seattle next week for concerts on Jan. 29-30 and Feb. 1. (Marco Borggreve)
My story about the matchless Patricia Kopatchinskaja, who comes to Seattle for a recital and concerts with the Seattle Symphony and Thomas Dausgaard:
Her Seattle Symphony debut drew blood. In April 2016, when Patricia Kopatchinskaja reached the final movement of Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto, her violin’s shoulder rest came loose. The screw that should have held it in place dug into her neck, breaking the skin. But the music wasn’t over yet.
Marjukka Tepponen (Tatyana) and John Moore (Onegin); (c) Sunny Martini
Just what is Onegin’s problem? The alienation embodied by Pushkin’s anti-hero obviously struck a powerful chord for Tchaikovsky – he wrote an immense symphony, after all, based on Byron’s version of the character type (Manfred) – yet it’s not until Tatyana’s name-day party at the beginning of the second act in Seattle Opera’s new production that we start to get a concrete sense of his identity…
Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin today is starting its festival devoted to the lieder of Franz Schubert, curated by Thomas Hampson. I wrote about Schubert and his poets for the program (p. 31ff).
Goethe provided the source for more Schubert songs than any other poet. A sample:
Nähe des Geliebten
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Ich denke dein, wenn mir der Sonne Schimmer
Vom Meere strahlt;
Ich denke dein, wenn sich des Mondes Flimmer
In Quellen malt.
Ich sehe dich, wenn auf dem fernen Wege
Der Staub sich hebt;
In tiefer Nacht, wenn auf dem schmalen Stege
Der Wandrer bebt.
Ich höre dich, wenn dort mit dumpfem Rauschen
Die Welle steigt.
Im stillen Hain da geh ich oft zu lauschen,
Wenn alles schweigt.
Ich bin bei dir, du seist auch noch so ferne.
Du bist mir nah!
Die Sonne sinkt, bald leuchten mir die Sterne.
O wärst du da!
Nearness of the Beloved
Peart was one of rock’s greatest drummers, with a flamboyant yet precise style that paid homage to his hero, the Who’s Keith Moon, while expanding the technical and imaginative possibilities of his instrument… His drum fills on songs like “Tom Sawyer” were pop hooks in their own right, each one an indelible mini-composition; his lengthy drum solos, carefully constructed and packed with drama, were highlights of every Rush concert.
As an antidote to the poison from the occupant of the White House and his lickspittle enablers, here is music by the courageous Mehdi Rajabian and colleagues.
Another installment in my reporting on the 2019 Beijing Music Festival. There was a strong emphasis on opera this year, which I looked at in this story for the January 2020 edition of Opera Now.
Tenor and conductor Peter Schreier died on Christmas Day in his beloved Dresden — whose Kreuzchor boys’ choir he had joined at the age of ten, when the city lay in ruins.
Deutsche Welle observes: “As GDR ‘export star’ he enjoyed rare travel privileges in the tightly-controlled GDR but reputedly without ever becoming a member of the communist SED party — a necessity for most East Germans who hoped to travel.”
“A day without music is a wasted day,” remarked Schreier, who retired from the stage in 2000 and from concert performances in 2005.
It was especially in the area of the German art song, along with Bach’s oratorios, that Schreier shone at his best. His sensitivity as a performer allowed him to take care to steer clear of manneristic gestures in Schubert’s song cycles as well as in the Hugo Wolf lieder that need to be performed with maximal attention to illuminating the text. Instead, he ensured that musical expressiveness was integrated into the larger whole…
I’ve been contributing to Gramophone magazine’s ongoing series on North American venues, starting with a guide to Seattle’s Benaroya Hall. Here’s a link to that piece.
MEMETERIA 