And Yet Another Updated List

Since I last updated this list in July of last year, Andrew and I have attended another eleven orchestra concerts.

The concerts are listed below.

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The Handel And Haydn Society
Symphony Hall
Boston

Harry Christophers, Conductor
Rachel Podger, Violin

Mozart: Serenade No. 13 (“Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”)
Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 5
Mozart: Overture And March From “Mitridate”
Mozart: Symphony No. 38 (“Prague”)

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The Handel And Haydn Society
Symphony Hall
Boston

Bernard Labadie, Conductor
Robert Levin, Piano

Haydn: Symphony No. 83 (“Hen”)
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4
Haydn: Symphony No. 94 (“Surprise”)

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Boston Symphony
Symphony Hall
Boston

Christian Zacharias, Conductor And Soloist

Haydn: Symphony No. 80
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 15
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 16
Haydn: Symphony No. 95

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Boston Symphony
Symphony Hall
Boston

Kurt Masur, Conductor
Nelson Freire, Piano

Schumann: Symphony No. 1 (“Spring”)
Schumann: Piano Concerto
Schumann: Symphony No. 4

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Boston Symphony
Symphony Hall
Boston

Christoph Dohnanyi, Conductor
Arabella Steinbacher, Violin

Ligeti: Double Concerto For Flute, Oboe And Orchestra
Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 4
Dvorak: Symphony No. 7

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The Handel And Haydn Society
Symphony Hall
Boston

Harry Christophers, Conductor

Handel: Israel In Egypt

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Akademie Fur Alte Musik, Berlin
Jordan Hall
Boston

Telemann: Overture (Suite) In F Major
Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 5
Bach: Violin Concerto No. 2
Handel: Concerto Grosso, Op. 6, No. 2
Telemann: Concerto In E Minor For Recorder And Flute

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Saint Petersburg Philharmonic
Symphony Hall
Boston

Yuri Temirkanov, Conductor
Alisa Weilerstein, Cello

Rimsky-Korsakov: Russian Easter Overture
Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1
Brahms: Symphony No. 4

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Boston Symphony
Symphony Hall
Boston

Charles Dutoit, Conductor
Bernarda Fink, Mezzo Soprano
Jean-Paul Fouchecourt, Tenor
Laurent Naouri, Baritone
Tanglewood Festival Chorus

Berlioz: Romeo And Juliet

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Minnesota Orchestra
Orchestra Hall
Minneapolis

Osmo Vanska, Conductor
Yevgeny Sudbin, Piano

Kernis: Concerto With Echoes
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3
Sibelius: Symphony No. 2

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Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
Ordway Center
Saint Paul

Thomas Zehetmair, Conductor And Soloist
Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra Chorale

Schubert: Offertory In B Flat Major, D. 963
Hartmann: Concerto Funebre
Haydn: Mass No. 14 (“Harmoniemesse”)

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None of the concerts was remarkable, or particularly memorable.

Three performances were a cut above everything else we heard: Kurt Masur’s performance of Schumann’s Symphony No. 1 with the Boston Symphony; Christoph Dohnanyi’s performance of Dvorak’s Symphony No. 7 with the Boston Symphony; and Yuri Temirkanov’s performance of Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 with the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic.

The Temirkanov/Saint Petersburg Brahms Fourth was the fifth time Andrew and I have heard the work together. We had previously heard Brahms Fourths performed by Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Neville Marriner and the Minnesota Orchestra, Fabio Luisi and the Dresden Staatskapelle, and Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic.

Five other works I heard with Andrew for the second time last season: Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, which we had heard performed by Alfred Brendel and Osmo Vanska and the Minnesota Orchestra; Haydn’s Symphony No. 94, which we had heard performed by Roberto Abbado and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Mozart’s Serenade No. 13, which we had heard performed by Vanska and the Minnesota Orchestra; Mozart’s Symphony No. 38, which we had heard performed by Colin Davis and the Boston Symphony; and Schumann’s Piano Concerto, which we had heard performed by Maurizio Pollini and James Levine and the Boston Symphony.

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American orchestral programming is extremely conservative. I find it interesting, and a little odd, that American orchestras, by and large, avoid performances of High Modernism. American orchestras tend to prefer “accessible” music, such as the featureless and watered-down Aaron Kernis composition Andrew and I had to endure last month. Why would an American orchestra program third-rate “accessible” music by Kernis when it has yet to present the output of Elliott Carter and Henri Dutilleux and Witold Lutoslawski? Such orchestras do not have their priorities straight—and may, with justification, be accused of “dumbing down” their mission.

Apparently it was not always such. Andrew’s father says that American orchestras, as a general rule, stopped programming High Modernism around 1980, coincident with the rise of a new generation of American tonal composers trained in the 1970s, a generation that rejected the academic rigidity of serial writing. Alas, the post-1970 generations of American tonal composers threw out the baby with the bathwater—they have produced no worthwhile and no lasting music. They have produced works that are insipid, even feeble. Their music lacks intellectual content.

We live in a period similar to the time known as The Galant: the complexities of The Baroque Age having been rejected and The Classical Period still awaiting its birth, The Galant was characterized by pleasant yet vapid surface, with no underlying content. The music of The Galant has disappeared—which is precisely what will happen to today’s American art music.

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Over the next year, Andrew and I will probably hear only two orchestras, the two local ensembles. Touring orchestras do not appear in the Twin Cities because there is no local organization that sponsors visiting orchestras.

The schedules for both the Minnesota Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra are fairly interesting for next season, although the Minnesota Orchestra desperately needs to upgrade its roster of guest conductors.

The Minnesota Orchestra is sitting on a giant endowment, but it stubbornly refuses to open its checkbook and engage first-rate guest conductors, preferring instead to hire low-cost journeymen. There is not a single major figure on next year’s roster of conductors. Next season’s Minnesota Orchestra guest conductors: James Gaffigan, Sarah Hicks, Kristjan Jarvi, Courtney Lewis, Andrew Litton, Carlo Rizzi, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Robert Spano, Gilbert Varga and Mark Wigglesworth.

The list is a provincial one.

Apparently it was not always such. Andrew’s father says that the Minnesota Orchestra’s roster of guest conductors was exceptional in decades past, but that the guest roster has been in a state of nonstop deterioration for at least twenty-five years. I cannot see much further deterioration, if only because next season’s guest roster is about as bad as it can get, short of engaging Orchestra Hall janitors.

I have no idea how many Minnesota Orchestra and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra concerts Andrew and I will hear next season. Ten Minnesota Orchestra programs carry some appeal, and eighteen Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra programs have some allure—but it is likely that we shall attend only a fraction of those numbers.