Matthew and Joyce in my backyard (from the H Post!)

As a long-time West Sider, I've happily traipsed through the bowels of Brooklyn for my last few posts in pursuit of the most happening events in classical music, theater and opera. But sometimes, as L. Frank Baum and Judy remind us, there is truly no place like home. Last Wednesday and Thursday, I experienced two of the greatest recitals I have ever had the pleasure of hearing in my own backyard Halls -- that would be Mathew Polenzani at Alice Tully and Joyce DiDonato at Carnegie. Both artists have graced the world's most prestigious opera stages in roles ranging from ingénues to English queens, from love-sick juveniles to Emperors of Rome. But in a recital, the singer is laid bare. Sets, costumes and lights are kept to a bare minimum; no orchestra or choreography or other players will help to heighten a character's inner life: there is only the singer and accompaniment. I've seen the most seasoned opera star fall flat simply because there is no support, nothing to lean on, no "character" to hide behind. But when a solo artist is confident, when the music soars from the soul of one person to the heart of the audience, there is simply no musical experience comparable -- as in the everyday world, intimacy is what feeds us, is what brings meaning to life. From Evanston, Illinois, Polenzani has performed the most challenging tenor roles in houses all over the world, but this was the first time I've seen him in recital. Walking on stage in an impeccable dark grey suit, , Polenzani and his pianist, the legendary Julius Drake took their places. He opened with one of Beethoven's most famous songs, "Adelaide," and he had me at the first phrase, Einsam wandelt dein Freund im Frühlingsgarten, as his clarion, vital, sumptuous tenor gently caressed the gorgeous music. His voice easily filled the hall, echoing through the rafters, but seemed completely effortless, as if he were singing in my living room, his voice needing to fly, needing to be heard. This was also the first time I've heard the British accompanist and chamber musician Drake perform live (though he plays on probably half of my classical CD collection). He seemed to be playing a magic trick with the Steinway Grand -- turning it into a fortepiano, the kind of instrument Beethoven himself played. I don't know quite how he did it; it wasn't just a matter of playing softly or less sustained but somehow the entire tone of a modern piano was brought down to an 18th Century scale. After the Beethoven, Polenzani segued into eight songs by Liszt with Drake now offering virtuosic Listzian pyrotechnics. I foolishly thought that I had heard the full bloom of Polenzani's sound with the Beethoven but I was wrong. His voice opened up even further. It was in this cycle I realized the depth of his emotional commitment as each song took on a completely different sense of character and emotional journey, from a man in the glow of youth appreciating the sound of the lark to a soul in despair, experiencing the death of all hope. Technically the transitions from his lowest notes to the highest were as smooth and as subtle as they were dazzling; when he gently held a pianissimo note and sweetly guided it down step-wards, I held my breath. The German language has never sounded as lovely. I have read that Liszt's songs, works that I'm not as familiar with as I intend to be in the future, are the bridge to the art songs of the great Austrian composer Hugo Wolf. I think it's a tribute to an artist to make the listener need to explore more of the repertoire just experienced. After the intermission, Polenzani and Drake again enchanted in spirited songs by Satie and Ravel but the true revelation of the evening, the highlight of the recital composed of highlight after highlight was Polenzani's transcendent performance of Barber's monumental Hermit Songs. I have loved this song cycle for years but it wasn't until I heard him sing them, that I was finally convinced these songs, though originally premiered by Leontyne Price, truly belong to a tenor. What convinced me was the unmatched pathos in Polenzani's voice and the glorious colors he used. Recently I admit I've been partial to a darker tenor sound, the sound of a Jonas Kaufmann or Charles Castronovo. But hearing Polenzani, I remembered why I originally loved that pure, golden tenor sound. Plus, as strange as it seems, some Americans who can sing beautifully in German, French, Spanish and even Russian, cannot sing at all in their native language; for some reason, unknown to me, they insist on fake extended vowels and annoying guttural consonants. This is definitely not the case here. Polenzani sung beautifully in English, and I could feel the audience being drawn further into the recital experience by not having to read along with the translations. Despite finding unexpected glories in all of the Hermit Songs, Polenzani brought a particular ardor and insight to the final piece in the cycle, "The Desire For Hermitage -- the brilliant climax to an unforgettable evening. Bravo, tenore! Great artists still have plenty to impart long after their peak years (just look at the Matisse cutouts so recently at MoMa). But there is nothing as exciting at seeing a world-class artist, maybe the best in the world, at the height of her career. Such was the case with the incandescent Joyce DiDonato. Oh yes. Instead of performing in the vast Stern Auditorium at Carnegie, which she sold out only a few weeks ago, on Thursday evening she was a "guest star" at the Brentano String Quartet concert in the 599-seat Zankel Hall. (All this while preparing La Donna del Lago at the Met.) The Brentano Quartet dazzled the audience in the first half of the program with a scholarly Charpentier interpretation and a definitive Debussy String Quartet in G Minor. After the break, DiDonato appeared in a stunning black-and-white outfit, the standing-room-only audience, which I have to assume was really there to hear her, embraced her with open arms. She then introduced three songs that had been created by the Lullaby Project; created by the Weill Music Institute, the Project visits women show are dwelling in New York City hospitals, homeless shelters, and at Rikers Island and invites them to write personal lullabies for their children in collaboration with professional artists. The songs, "Hopes and Dreams for My Children (Elsa Negron with Matt Aronoff) "Dream Big" (Shaylor Canteen with Thomas Cabaniss) and "Peace" (Tamilles Fernandes with Deidre Rodman Struck) were mesmerizing. The conviction DiDonato brought to these heartfelt compositions was another tribute to her artistry. Not only can she sing convincingly in any language she choices, but her diction and sensitivity to vernacular lyrics (Will you play soccer just like your daddy does/Am I squishing you when I sleep at night?) lifted the compositions to that rarified world of art song. Similar to the Polenzani recital, she saved the best for last: the premiere of American composer Jake Heggie's monumental "Camille Claude: Into the Fire," a glorious if heart-wrenching new composition, with words by his longtime collaborator, Gene Scheer, As Strauss's "Rosenkavalier" reveled in the waltzes and the schlag of Vienna, as Sondheim's "A Little Night Music" danced to the waltzes and "perpetual sunsets" of Scandinavia, "Into the Fire," suggested by sculptures of Claudel, is filled with sad, heartfelt and at times disturbing waltzes consumed with the passions and longing of rejected lovers, music that could have been heard on the streets and café's of Rodin's Paris. The piece begins with a shimmering high A, at which point the string quartet seemed to be tuning up or metaphorically preparing for life as the first gorgeous waltz emerged, slowly at first, but then with more and more rhythmic, intense ferocity before it broke down again, just as DiDonato entered softly but gloriously with the opening line, "Last night I went to sleep completely naked, which seemed somehow to encompass Claudel's entire life. The warmth and profundity of DiDonato's buttery lower register was gloriously explored in the second song, "La Valse" while her subtle soft notes were on display in "Shakuntala," the most rhythmic of pieces. The composition moved from strength to strength as Claudel sank deeper and deeper, musically and verbally, into despair, finally ending up with the Epilogue, 16 years into her confinement at the Montdevergues Asylum. The solo violin (the astonishing Mark Steinberg) seemed to portray a friend who came to visit, talking to Claudel. DiDonato sang, "Thank you for remembering me", and her pianissimo was radiant. The entire quartet picked up the valse triste as DiDonato ended with another almost unbearable, "Thank you for remembering me." And silence. There was nothing more to say, or hear.

NICE JEWISH MUSIC (from Huff Post!)

Nice Jewish Music When American song writer Jerome Kern announced he was going to write a show based on Marco Polo, an enthusiastic reporter asked, “Mr. Kern, your new musical is based on an Italian who crossed the Alps and then the Leviathan desert, got to Mongolia, then China and finally returned home to Italy. For heaven’s sake, what type of music will you compose?” Kern answered without missing a beat, “Nice Jewish Music.” (Oh, I hope that’s true.) Last Monday, I went to my favorite venue in the city, SubCulture (160 seats-the friendliest staff and a bar that actually closes during the performances) to see CONTACT! a Co-Presentation of 92nd Street Y and the New York Philharmonic, the seminal series dedicating to performing new music. This concert was called New Music from Israel, and yes it was “nice Jewish music!” Substituting for an indisposed Lisa Batiashvili was the erudite Yotam Haber, a composer I deeply admire, Israeli or not. In fact, I knew the music of all four of the composers but had never once thought of three of them as particularly Israeli, although somewhere in my mind I guess I knew they were all born there. As Haber took pains to explain in his welcome speech, Israel today is a melting pot; what it means to be Israeli is completely different than what I meant forty years ago. He joked that what was being presented was a Me'orav yerushalmi, or Jerusalem Mix, a grilled mix of meats that is often served before a meal. He talked about the dilemma of writing “nationalistic” music. Before the twentieth century most classical music did indeed have a nationalistic sound, perhaps not because of a composer’s personal politics but simply because traveling to other parts of Europe, let alone the world, was exceedingly difficult, and for geographical reasons composers were mostly exposed to music of their compatriots. A national sound developed almost by default. In today’s world of instant down-loads from iTunes, or actually ever since air travel became the norm, the nationalist sound of various regions became diffuse; a composer almost has to consciously decide to write music that would be deemed nationalistic. The first composer presented Joseph Bardanashvili was born in Georgia in 1948 and didn’t move to Israel until 1995. Since then he has been one of the countries most performed composers and it’s easy to see why judging from the movement selected from his String Quartet No. 1, Quasi danza macabre. As the music began, I felt it couldn’t be less Israeli if it tried. The danza kicked off with a riotous tango, the rhythms directly from Argentina but the harmonies directly from Bardanashvili’s fertile imagination. It was as if Astor Piazolla, suddenly inspired, discovered Schoenberg, Berg and Stravinsky. The syncopations, the disjointed rhythms and the delicious harmonies made for a perfect opening. But suddenly as the first section dissolved into the second by way of an astounding cello cadenza (played by the Nathan Vickery,) we high-tailed it out of Argentina, and via El Al landed directly at Ben Gurion Airport. The music turned decidedly modal, with the aching and longings of a wandering Jew, and we were smack in the Old City of Jerusalem. The cello and occasionally the viola kept the incessant beat with a macabre pedal tone as the two violins danced high above with shimmering, but steely harmonics. The main theme returned at the end and the piece came to a rousing climax with a reprise of the infectious tango, the perfect way to open this me'orav yerushalmi. Next up was Haber’s own piece, and though I adore Haber’s minimalist style with his post-Adams tunefulness and post-Glass syncopations this piece, Estro Poetico-armonico II was a dense concentration of sounds and pitches far removed from anything I’ve heard of his before. Suggested by the story of Benedetto Marcello, a Venetian contemporary of J.S. Bach’s who hid in the Synagogue transcribing the ancient melodies, Haber took snippets of these tunes and compressed them into musical atoms. This piece was an interesting contradiction: the densest musically as well as the sparest. I loved how the “tunes” seemed to surface through the lowest notes of the bass clarinet (Lino Gomez) and then swirl into the modular trillings’ of the violins. Shulamit Ran, the second woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for music was perhaps the most well-known of the quartet although her piece, Mirage for five players seemed to me a minor work from a great composer. I was most looking forward to hearing the piece by Avner Dorman, the composer I would have mentioned if someone asked me to name and Israeli composer. I was lucky enough to hear his outrageous piece at the NY Phil, Spices, Perfumes, Toxins! in 2009 featuring the now (sadly) disbanded Perca-duo, one of the most sensational performance of a new piece I’ve ever heard. Dorman did not let me down with his, aptly titled, Jerusalem Mix. Blasting off with the rhythms of New York with more than a touch of Bernstein and Gershwin, the syncopated phrases engulfed the audience and took us on a virtually tour of the night-life of New York City. But then just as suddenly as in the Bardanashvili, we were in Tel Aviv with Marc Nuccio on the clarinet and Sherry Sylar, oboe, inviting us to a Jewish Wedding. Of course, with Dorman, this is no let’s-all-improvise-on-D-minor-and-dance-a-hora-type music, but a deeply contrapuntal excursion into the vernacular. All through the evening I kept trying to hear any sort of unifying sound that would link these three disparate composers. It seems that in all of the pieces, surrounded by vibrant rhythms of dance and exotic colors was an aura of sadness, loneliness and desperation. I wonder if that’s the “nice Jewish music.” And a postscript: Before the CONTACT! concert, I went to the York Theater on Lexington (which is completely unmarked, can they please fix that?) for a staged reading of an operatic version The Sleeping Beauty. The composer, Benjamin Wenzelberg, age 15, has been working on the opera since he was 11. He won the 2014 BMI Student Composer Award and a 2015 National Young Arts Foundation Merit winner. He sings in the Met Children’s chorus, was a composer at Tangelwood last summer, studies composition and conducting at Juilliard and I saw him as Miles in the NYCO production of The Turn of the Screw. I never use the “G” word, but if I did, I would burden Wenzelberg with it. So how was the opera? Wonderful. This was a true opera full of recitatives, choruses and arias that define and delineate character but most importantly it is music driven, not surprising for a young composer who grew up singing at the Met, but still. Plus Wenzelberg enlisted his “friends,” to perform, nice to have friends like the legendary Soprano Lauren Flanigan who was at the top of her game. Watch out for this kid!