Philadelphia Mahler 8th Performances

Prelude

I started off my trip with the Philadelphia Orchestra performing Bruckner’s 6^th Symphony under Christoph Eschenbach on April 26, 2008. I thought the performance rather good, one of the better Eschenbach performances I’ve heard. There was an odd tempo change though at the start of the first movement. Violins were divided to both sides of the podium. The strings still have a unique sound and the chordal balances were beautiful. The first half featured an occasionally intonation challenged Vadim Repin doing the Sibelius Violin Concerto in a clear sound. (Personally I’d like a warmer sound like Anne Sophie Mutter had with MTT and the LSO back in the 90’s)

Fan or Fanatic?

This is the second time I’ve heard the entire run of a Mahler symphony in Philadelphia (with an additional Carnegie performance). I don’t know if I’ll ever do it again. While interesting and fulfilling (since we almost get to hear no Mahler in Honolulu), it is a bit of an overdose.

Miscellanea:

There were 4 rehearsals & 5 concerts for the Mahler's 8th Symphony. The Philadelphia Verizon Hall concerts were on April 30, May 1, 2, & 3, 2008. The Carnegie Hall concert was on May 6, 2008. The Philadelphia Orchestra last played the 8^th during the summer of 1977 at the Robin Hood Dell under James Levine according to the program notes. Some of the old timers in the orchestra couldn’t remember playing the work there and a number of the newer members I spoke to said they had never played the 8^th before. The Dell looked a bit small to hold a large orchestra and chorus, though I’ve been told that they do rock concerts there now. Orchestra and Chorus totaled over 300. The Mater Gloriosa, Marisol Montalvo was once Miss New York in the Miss American Pagent. New York area fans will note that the 8^th will be done at least on two occasions next season, once with Boulez and the Staatskapelle Berlin and with Maazel ending up his New York Philharmonic tenure with subscription performances.

Stage Layout

Mater Gloriosa (in the 2^nd tier on left) Organist in 2^nd tier

Chorus Chorus Chorus

Boy’s Chorus (on Risers)

Percussion Tuba Trombones Horns Trumpets Timpani

Clarinets Bassoons

Flutes Oboes Mandolins

Celli Violas Keyboards

Basses 1^st violins 2^nd violins Harps

Female soloists Podium Male soloists

Female Chorus II on the left & right of stage (in 1^st Tier boxes)

Off stage brass in 2^nd Tier boxes toward the opposite end of the hall.

Performances Verizon Hall

IMO, Thursday and Saturday’s performances were the most impressive of the Philadelphia performances. Wednesday’s performance had a kind of opening night jitters where I thought the ensemble was not as tight as it could be. For example the opening choruses of Part I seemed shaky.

Eschenbach doesn’t seem to be someone concerned with precision or consistency. His was not a sharp edged reading (like Solti), but one more interested in the musical line. Eschenbach’s reading, especially of Part II seemed to get longer each night. However, from after the Mater Gloriosa sings to the end, Eschenbach brought an impressive finish to the work.

Eschenbach does an odd thing with the Chorus II sopranos and altos at RN 213 where he holds over the B flats from the previous measure through the barline before having everyone come in on a delayed downbeat.

Balances were pretty good, though sometimes I got the impression that James Morris didn’t project as well as the other male singers. The Philadelphia Singers Chorale, Westminster Symphonic Choir, Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, and The American Boychoir were most impressive. The choral signing was far superior to what I heard in San Francisco when the San Francisco Symphony did the 8^th some 10 years ago. Christine Brewer, soprano Michaela Kaune, soprano Marisol Montalvo, soprano Stephanie Blythe, mezzo-soprano and Charlotte Hellekant, mezzo-soprano were an excellent female solo section. Montalvo, whose vibrato was criticized in the past had it mostly under control for the Philadelphia performances. Brewer & Blythe were the standouts, though Kaune & Hellekant were also excellent. On the male side of the stage, tenor Anthony Dean Griffey was a last minute replacement for an indisposed Vinson Cole. This was a major coup. His Dr. Marianus was beautiful. Baritone, Franco Pomponi was very good. Only the usually incomparable James Morris seemed off his game. (intonation problems.) Intonation of sopranos Brewer and Kaune was dead on. Montalvo’s vibrato was in better control the last three nights than the first night. James Morris sounded a bit flat on occasion. The off stage brass was placed in the 2^nd tier to stage right away from the stage and the coordination with the main orchestra was good. The on-stage orchestral work was good with horn soloist Jennifer Montone standing out. The high points were the incredible orchestral playing, the stunning choral work & the solo vocalists.

Carnegie Hall

Vinson Cole was the tenor soloist at Carnegie but he did not sound as good as Anthony Dean Griffey did at Verizon. Even the female vocalists weren’t as good as at Verizon. I thought Christine Brewer’s high notes spread unlike at Verizon where she sounded more focused. Montalvo’s vibrato was more pronounced from the left balcony. Choruses didn’t sound as good on a very cramped stage. The layout meant that the singers had very little breathing room. There was more tension at Carnegie and the work unfolded better, but I thought that ensemble was not as tight. The coordination between chorus and orchestra was a bit off at the beginning of Part I. However, Part I was faster than at Verizon. At least in the Center Balcony, there was a tendency for the sound to turn into a bassless mess when everything was going full tilt. The strings also didn’t seem to project as well into the hall. I don’t know if this was because much of the string section was way out into the hall on the extended stage.

Recording?

According to pre-concert announcements, the concerts were recorded for possible issue. It might be hard to edit with Eschenbach’s varied tempi. I don’t know how the editors will be able to do it. Thursday’s performance of Part II was the best IMO, but there were numerous coughs throughout the performance. Saturday had the best Part I, but some dummy yelled something at the end, which might be hard to edit out. If the Ondine crew can capture the sound of the choruses, it may be one of the better ones on disc as far as the chorus goes. The soloist group may also be one the best on disc since the Solti recording. There were a lot of microphones, presumably to compensate for the live recording. The Saturday night concert was broadcast via closed-circuit TV (and presumably recorded). There were no touch-up sessions, so Ondine had to work from the 4 concerts.

Closing comments

These Mahler 8th symphony performances were the last in Eschenbach's tenure as Music Director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. I think his cycle with the orchestra remained incomplete as the 7th symphony scheduled for earlier this season was cancelled. Eschenbach returns next seasons as a guest in subscriptions and on tour, but with no Mahler scheduled. His last subscription concert with the orchestra took place on May 17, 2008 in a program of Schubert's b minor and C Major symphonies.

Bonds, Barry Bonds

So Barry Bonds is now the Home Run King in American Major League Baseball.

I’m glad that he broke the record in San Francisco rather than on the road. The hometown crowd deserved to see him break the record at home, especially since the team doesn’t have anything else to look forward to this disappointing season.

Sabean will now have the chance to clear salary in the off season and begin the rebuilding effort and hopefully have a contender in the next few years. Given the strength of the starting pitching, the team ought to be at least in the mix of things with a few off season acquisitions. (Hopefully, a good closer among other things)

Given the controversy around Bonds, I suspect that this season will be the end of his career. The Federal witch hunt goes on. I find it kind of scary that they can convene a grand jury for as long as they have and not bring an indictment.

“Innocent until proven guilty”, is the way it’s supposed to be in the U.S. However, it seems that the press with whom BB has had a poor relationship with seems to think otherwise. He may have lied to the grand jury, but he’s never tested positive for steroids. (Yes, I’ve heard that the “clear” was made not to turn up in testing) If I remember correctly, while he supposedly was juicing up, there was no ban on steroids in Major League Baseball. So just because he’s less than a nice guy, the press seems to have convicted him of using a performance enhancing substance. I’d say he’d more likely to be indicted on tax evasion charges more than anything.

Baseball’s Bud Selig seems to be the modern equivalent of Ford Frick. As Frick was a friend of Babe Ruth who hated the idea of Roger Maris breaking Ruth’s single season record, Selig seems intent on marginalizing Bonds achievement in part since Selig is a close friend of Henry Aaron. His statement after Bonds tied Aaron was pitiful.

Baseball has had a long history of cheating, racism, vicious playing, or changing standards which affected the game and its records. The Black Sox scandal of game fixing was due in part to cheap management. Ruth’s homerun record was set in a segregated game. Ty Cobb was an SOB who hurt opposing players. Retaliating for homes is still a shameful thing in baseball. Pine tar, corked bats, spit balls, and greaseballs were all cheats that were meant to give a player an edge. The longer seasons, the lowered pitcher’s mound all affected the game and its records. The lowered mound gave away a pitcher’s edge. With the advent of the reliever, hitters had to readjust where as in the past they may have faced a tired starting pitcher going all nine. Supposedly, there were juiced-up pitchers in the Bond’s prime, so he had to contend with hitting against them as well.

Baseball isn’t the clean All-American game that it’s made out to be. Let’s accept the records as they are and just move on. After all, A-Rod, will likely be along in the next half-a-dozen years to break Bond’s record.

Early Stereo Recordings on Music & Arts

Music & Arts recent release of early 50's stereo recordings done by recording pioneer Bert Whyte is a very important issue in that it provides an interesting comparison between his recording and Mercury's of Tabor from Smetana's Ma Vlast. Experimenting at the Mercury sessions of Rafael Kubelik and the Chicago Symphony, Whyte provides a more spacious if slightly bass heavy alternative to the mono Mercury recording. The availability of stereo here makes for an even more impressive sonic experience than that of the fabled Mercury recording. Whyte's recording seems to be of a single take rather than one edited together. There is a better sense of continuity and intensity in the stereo issue than in the mono Mercury release. The only noticeable problem is a very slight trace of overload in a few of the loud portions of the music.

The other parts of the issue involve part of a Leopold Stokowski/Detroit Symphony Concert from 1952. The works involved include Jacob Avshalomov's The Taking of T'ung Kuan and Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony. Sonically, Stokie was experimenting with seating here, so we don't get a left/right string configuration, but strings on one side and winds/brass on the other. There is good dynamic range here. There are a couple of problems with warble on the tape in the Tchaikovsky.

The Tchaikovsky has applause between the first & second movements & Stokowski immediately jumps to the coda in the finale to avoid the false ending & the likelihood of applause there. As typical with most of Stokie's performances, there is great excitement here. The Avshalomov is a pleasant enough piece with oriental traces, that seems to suit Stokie well, though the composer had some problems with tempos in this under rehearsed performance. The orchestra which was early in Paray's tenure seems to be a scrappy bunch, lacking the discipline of the Mercury recordings that gave the orchestra national recognition.

Notes include Avshalomov's recollections of the rehearsal & performance of his work; an Edward Johnson piece on Stokowski; and technical notes by Mark Obert-Thorn who did the restoration of the recordings. The CSO is credited as the "Mercury Symphony Orchestra" in the booklet.

Given the quality of these early stereo recordings, one hopes that more of Whyte's recordings are in the wings waiting to be issued.

Joyce Hatto

With the music world a blaze with everyone's theory about the Joyce Hatto case, I might as well put in my own two cents.

It amazes me what kind of theories about this have popped up on the Internet. Some sound even more strange than the Kennedy assassination and Roswell conspiracies.

If this hoax/fraud is true, it probably is the biggest news in the classical music recording industry in years.

Pity the poor critic that gave her recordings a rave as everyone seems to be dishing it out on their "incompetence". Let's give them a break folks. Given the number of recordings issued and reviewed each year, there is no way they can remember similarities between every recording. I have a ton of duplicate recordings of all sorts of music and I can't recall details about everyone. There has to be a level of trust between listeners & the industry that incidents like this don't happen. Can you imagine scrutinizing every single recording that is released?

It will be interesting to see how this case unfolds and what really happened.

Kung Hee Fat Choy / Legend Restaurant

Happy Chinese New Year to all. I believe that it is now the year of the Boar.

China Town in Honolulu was packed on New Year's Eve yesterday. Had dinner at Legend Chinese Restaurant in the Cultural Plaza. The food was excellent, though with the huge crowds, service was very slow. (Dinner took almost 3 hours!) The Kahuku Prawns were like mini lobster's full of juicy meat. The veggie dish was Choi Sum. Legend does a mean Baked Oyster on the Half Shell with Portuguese sauce (a dish from Macao I believe). The Winter Melon soup was terrific with ham, chicken, dried scallops, crab, & mushrooms. Everyone had multiple servings of this. New to our celebrations this year was a char sui style pork ribs with a tempura style sea scallops wrapped in bacon. The final dish before dessert was the Yin-Yang Fried rice with tomato & cream sauce which was very tasty. Dessert consisted of coconut flake coated Haupia balls. (Don't know the Chinese name for it). Finally, there was tapioca soup type dish. Legend continues to be one of the best places for quality Chinese food in Honolulu.

Sushi Ten

When on the west side of Oahu near the Waikele Shopping Center, check out Sushi Ten resturant. It's located in the club house of the Waikele Golf Course. Open for breakfast, lunch, & dinner. They also have banquet facilities there.

The food focus is Japanese as well as Okinawan and American dishes on the menu. The specialty is of course sushi and sashimi. Their teishoku's come with salad, miso soup, tsukemono, & ice cream. Hot tea & water are free. The chirashi sushi & sashimi teishoku's have nice big pieces of ahi, maguro, hamachi, salmon, & tako. The sushi chef reportedly shops daily for fresh fish at the local fish auction. The tempura there is the traditional Japanese type with the frittery batter. There's shrimp, egg plant, & mushrooms in the selection i tried.

Since the resturant also serves as the 19th hole for the golf course, there are also smaller items including sandwiches and pupus along with bar service. Prices seem to range between $10-$20 for complete meals.

Sushi Ten was good when it was in Waimalu and continues to serve great Japanese food on the west side of Oahu.