L’Amour de loin DVD

Posted on January 4, 2012 by barczablog

COC logoAs the Canada Opera Company’s February production of Kaija Saariaho’s Love From Afar gets closer my curiosity grows.  I’ve seen several new operas in my time, both the ones that vanished, and the ones that have stayed in the repertoire.

What is the secret of success?  I suppose the simplest (and perhaps most obvious) thing to observe is that unless the opera is good it is unlikely to survive.  But being “good” is such an elusive quality –and yes you can be forgiven for saying that what I’ve said is close to useless—that producers don’t necessarily know what they have when they commission or program a contemporary opera.  All I meant was that it’s not enough to be trendy or a flavour of the month.  Survival is Darwinistic in the fullest sense.

DVD L'Amour de loin

DVD L’Amour de loin

With such thoughts in my head –wondering for example what motivated the COC to program Love From Afar –I watched the Finnish National Opera’s 2004 DVD of L’Amour de loin, as Saariaho’s opera is actually called.  With libretto by Amin Maalouf it’s a work of many contradictions if not actual paradoxes.  Its style is both modern yet grounded in what came before, premiered in 2000, yet concerning figures from long ago.

Let’s momentarily set aside the review of the DVD, directed by Peter Sellars, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, and starring Gerald Finley, Dawn Upshaw, and Monica Groop.  My chief focus at the moment is this new opera that we’ll be discovering soon at the Four Seasons Centre in Toronto.

Now that I have heard and seen L’Amour de Loin once all the way through, plus a few re-hearings, I feel if anything a little premature in giving anything like a commentary.  I have seen a lot, and am delighted at the depths I am plumbing.  But I am confident that my positive response is genuine and not likely to change in the years to come.  I am hopeful of seeing this opera repeatedly, first here in Toronto, sometime thereafter at the Metropolitan Opera, and in future productions.

When I first heard about the subject matter of Saariaho’s opera and the small cast, I wondered –especially in the first scene—whether it was genuinely operatic, rather than a series of solipsistic moments.  But I didn’t expect the many layers of meaning I would encounter.

“Love From Afar” –a fairly literal translation of the French title—encapsulates the opera on many levels.

  • there’s the physical reality of the story:
    Jaufré Rudel, sung by a baritone, is a Troubadour and Prince of Blaye in Europe, while Clémence, sung by a soprano, is Countess of Tripoli. A pilgrim serves to pass messages between them across the gulf that separates them.
  • there are the spiritual overtones of the story:
    the militant actions of the Crusades and the passionate pilgrimages both underlie this period, when men went across the world to fight for their faith, or surrender themselves to higher powers.  Jaufré speaks of pilgrimage, but at the centre of this tale is the trouser role of the pilgrim, a genderless figure serving as a curious mirror to the gendered lovers whose messages are carried back and forth.
  • love itself is problematized:
    I find myself thinking that indeed all love is from afar, given the existential gulf between people, the gulf of faith required to make any connection with certainty.  Each of the lovers deconstructs their own experience, in internal monologues questioning the meaning of love, debating different aspects of love.   This makes L’Amour de loin marvellous to watch, as if each of the lovers were enacting a kind of opera within an opera.  These lovers undaunted by distance enact a parable of Platonic love.

L’Amour de Loin is a very accomplished piece of work.  It’s always pretty to hear, even as it flirts with noise and dissonance, so careful to ensure we’re never tired of the sweetness at the core of this work.  The voices are clearly audible, never drowned by an orchestra capable of swelling powerfully but usually very wisely deployed to allow the softest nuances of vocal expression.  At times the singing tiptoes into parlando (or Sprechstimme?) teasing us with the intimacy of the sentiments; we are inside the heads of our protagonists, and so we have no need for anything bombastic or forced.  If your idea of “operatic” is “overblown” or “grandiose” this won’t seem operatic to you, because every moment is well-conceived and never out of proportion.  In this respect Saariaho’s opera is modern even as it probes pre-modern sentiments.

Saariaho’s influences are one of the pleasures of her opera, as we hear hints and intimations of where she’s been as a sensibility.  Having studied in France, it’s entirely to be expected that we hear echoes of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande or Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites.  I read in the program notes that Saariaho changed her mind about opera after seeing Messiaen’s St François d’Assise; I don’t know that opera at all, but did hear several clusters and combinations reminiscent of Messiaen-ic sonorities.  I was also reminded powerfully of the last act of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, although that is perhaps only by the implications of the scenario rather than any musical allusions.

The DVD?  Those of you who read these postings may have already heard me express admiration for Gerald Finley, who inhabits Jaufré with great intensity, and offers his usual suave, clean vocalism.  Who else to play a singer, if not a genuine mastersinger?  I am not sure I understand the subtleties of Dawn Upshaw’s performance as the Countess; she is sympathetic, musical, but I was not in any respect overwhelmed by her performance, perhaps (for me) overshadowed by the edgy performance of her lover.  Monica Groop’s Pilgrim was possibly subtler and more profound than Finley’s Jaufré; but that may be my misplaced admiration for this ambiguous role itself, which is wonderfully well-conceived, beautifully directed (credit to Sellars) and captured by the camera.  Even so, I must express my enthusiasm for the opera and the DVD, unsure whether it was Saariaho who has won my heart or the performance.

There’s a great deal more to study, beginning with another look at the DVD, and later the pleasures of seeing this opera produced by the COC in Toronto in about a month’s time.  I am curious to hear what Russell Braun will make of this role, considering the depth of Gerald Finley’s wonderful portrayal.  Braun has assembled an impressive recent body of work, both in his Toronto appearances (including Pelléas, Prince Andrei in War & Peace, and most recently as Orestes in Iphigenie in Tauris) and abroad (Chou En Lai in the Met’s Nixon In China). Jaufré’s passing is perhaps not as transcendentally beautiful as Mélisande’s, which I consider the sine qua non, but still among the most beautiful such moments in all opera.  I am eager to see what the COC and Braun can do.

Russell Braun and Joseph Kaiser in the COC's Iphigenia in Tauris

Russell Braun and Joseph Kaiser in the COC’s 2011 production of Iphigenia in Tauris (photo by Michael Cooper)

Posted in Cinema, video & DVDs, Opera, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Ministers of Music

Posted on December 31, 2011 by barczablog

December 30th is a day of reflection in my family.  My father passed away on this date long ago, forever casting a shadow over this festive season.  It doesn’t mean one can’t celebrate.  If one occasionally eats & drinks oneself into a place where one is blissfully in the here and now of sensations, surely one can be forgiven, whether that hedonism is to escape or celebrate.  Christmas is a time of rebirth and new beginnings, and by association invites us to contemplate our good fortune, our blessings, and to give thanks.

Liszt

A portrait of Franz Liszt

The musical world commemorates anniversaries of composers long-dead, but hopefully not forgotten.  2010 was the year of the Chopin bicentennial, whereas 2011 has seen at least two great composers celebrated, both of whom mean far more to me than Chopin.  This is the end of a year celebrating Liszt and Mahler.  Franz Liszt was born 200 years ago, while Gustav Mahler died a century ago.

As a young child I was regularly taken to a Lutheran Church in Scarborough, particularly in the years when my father was diagnosed and gradually dying, and of course also after his passing.  Near the end, the pastor’s family took in the children while my mother sat by my father in a hospital.  I was so young that I remember almost nothing, so that this has passed into the family mythology, an amalgam of tales re-told.  The time spent with the generous pastor was a kind of purgatory, given what was taking place in the hospital, before returning to a family radically changed.  I have a dim sense of what came before, but only know that there was always warmth and kindness, my father having providentially made arrangements for his widow & children.   And the church was part of this blurry memory.

It shouldn’t be surprising that after awhile we drifted away from the church.   Each family member had their own story, but mine goes something like this.  I started to question, particularly given that we were not going every Sunday morning.  I came to think of myself as an agnostic, recognizing that I couldn’t really know one way or another.  I was not an atheist, and feel very strongly that atheism is really another faith category.  No, I was just in a kind of agnostic limbo, perhaps unaware that I was waiting for something to catch my attention, win me over.

The title for this piece may seem odd, considering that I have been rambling on about my childhood, while mentioning Mahler & Liszt in passing, without making any connection.  I recall being reminded in various church choirs that we are ministers, not just because we put on funny gowns that take away our individuality, while making us seem somewhat symbolic in the ritual space of a church.  It begins with the idea that many eyes may be upon us.  We shouldn’t pick our noses or behave in a manner to wreck the experience of those coming to the church in search of some kind of solace or comfort.  We may not recognize the roles we play, but we’re privileged to be part of this sacred process.  Music is one part of the service, right? it occurs to me that music and musicians minister to us whether we’re in church or not.

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

There are many pathways that can lead one back to the church after one has lost their way, as I had.  During the intervening years before I came back, I found something spiritual in the works of Gustav Mahler.  His Second, Third and Fourth Symphonies were particularly illuminating for me, in various ways rekindling a long-dormant process of meditation.  Dead embers came back to life gradually.  The vivid moments in the last movement of the Second Symphony encouraged me to visualize the Resurrection in my mind’s eye.  It’s counter-intuitive, but this quirky composer, tormented by the anti-semitism he faced throughout his career seemed like a messenger showing me the path.

Did Mahler convert to Christianity to get a job as conductor of the Vienna Opera?  It’s a matter that’s not known with certainty.  What we do encounter, embodied in his symphonies, is an unconditional theology that is a perfect match for that current demographic that self-identifies as “spiritual but not religious.”  There is no hell in Mahler, just Heaven.  For those who are lost Mahler is as welcoming as Alcoholics Anonymous or a homeless shelter, a warm & fuzzy pathway back towards faith.

Liszt may seem less likely as a pathway, but I believe that’s because his reputation as a virtuoso overshadows other notable achievements over a wonderful long life, and one of the most under-rated figures in the history of music.   The Liszt of “Lisztomania”, a friend & champion to other artists?  In modern culture, collaboration is the norm, especially in multi-disciplinary forms such as theatre and film, but it’s hard to imagine life before artists learned how to work together.  I believe a lot of this begins with Liszt.  Berlioz’s fame spread via Liszt’s piano transcription of Symphonie Fantastique, whereby the world discovered music that otherwise was not being programmed, and would therefore have remained unknown.  We can’t really grasp this nowadays, when music is ubiquitous and cheap via radio, CD, and other media.  But when there were no recordings, how else would someone discover new music?

Liszt made so much money as a concert artist that he became a philanthropist, helping the poor, funding new schools and academies, and taking artists under his wing.  When Wagner was in exile following the failed 1849 uprising in Dresden, Liszt not only gave him a place to shelter his family but produced and conducted Wagner’s romantic operas in his theatre.

In addition to his generosity & mentoring spirit, Liszt showed me something very simple and fundamental.  His transcriptions of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner, Verdi, Schubert, alongside his own compositions are sometimes dismissed as virtuoso trifles.  I am not proposing to evaluate anyone’s achievements, only to speak of a joyful pathway.  Sometimes we sit down to make music following the procedures set before us, fearful of playing wrong notes and infused with the negativity that pedagogy and music teachers condition into us, a lack of independence of spirit drilled into us by too much respect and awe for those who came before.

Liszt showed me the fun, channelling selflessly what was in the score.  I am not saying I am a good composer, only that I would never have found any confidence or self-knowledge without first having felt the bravery in Liszt’s own handling of the music of others.  I felt better about my arrangements of Christmas carols, my versions of Beatles tunes or my own various attempts to transcribe symphonies, after playing through some of Liszt’s transcriptions.  I felt similar joy with transcriptions by Rachmaninoff (his Mendelssohn, Tchaikowsky and Schubert) and Busoni (his Bach!!).  I lost my fear when i felt that joy.  When I sat down to accompany singers I stopped worrying about notes and started to think about making music, which became a spiritual channel.  Every year music has become more and more enjoyable.    How ironic that the man most closely identified with the role of the romantic virtuoso transcended the egotism of that role in his maturity.

I may seem to be retrospective as I face the new year.  It’s funny to think that I know where I am going because I am looking behind me.  Thank you Gustav & Ferenc, for what you gave us, the delights and the lessons, the examples you set and the wonderful compositions still reminding us of you.

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10 Questions for Rick Sacks

Posted on December 26, 2011 by barczablog
Rick Sacks

An older photo of Rick Sacks

Richard Sacks has been a force on the Toronto creative scene for more than 25 years, as a composer & sound-designer, percussionist, mentor, and likely a few others roles i didn’t think of.  He performs with Arraymusic, Art of Time, Aventa, The Evergreen Club Gamelan, The Glass Orchestra, New Music Concerts, Red Sky Performance, and others.  Sacks also works as both a performer and a composer/sound-designer in contemporary dance and theatre productions. He has toured extensively through Europe and Asia. Sacks also works as both a performer and a composer/sound-designer in contemporary dance and theatre productions. He has performed with Robert Desrosiers, Dancemakers, Le Group de la Place Royal, Bill James, Carbon 14, and Toronto Dance Theatre. In theatre, recent work has been as composer/performer for Canadian Stage’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Park at High Park, Midsummer Night’s Dream at Passe Muraille, the hit show ‘Sibs’ (Tarragon), and the award winning children’s shows, “Dib and Dob” and “Danny, King of the Basement” and “Rocket and the Queen of Dreams” (Roseneath). In 2010 Sacks received a DORA award for music creation of TONO for Red Sky Performance.  “Rick Sacks Solo Electronic Show” is coming up on January 14th 2012.

I ask Sacks ten questions: five about himself and five about his work.

1) Which of your parents do you resemble (what’s your nationality / ethnic background)?

Rick Sacks

Rick Sacks' current photo from Array New Music's site

I probably most resemble my father. I can hear his voice when I speak.  People from my hometown who haven’t seen me for a long time say, “You’re just like your father.” I know I have traits from my mother, but I think my dad’s stamp is predominant. There’s some question as to whether my great grandfather on my father’s side came from Russia but my grandfather was born in Palestine before it became Israel.

As a teenager, with a couple of uncles, at the turn of the century, my grandfather, traveled from Palestine, by horse and buggy, to South Africa.  In Capetown, he met my Lithuanian grandmother. It seems there was migration by Lithuanians to South Africa and Australia while the Polish Jews went from Europe to North America.

Rick Sacks once more

Rick Sacks' picture from the Evergreen Club site

I asked my grandmother on my mother’s side where her family was from and she answered,, “The Austro-Hungarian Empire. Traced that to a small town in Poland. Her father was a “woodsman”.  He owned a saloon that served flavoured vodkas and would travel the forests reporting to the Emperor’s men on where the good hunting, berries and timber could be found.

2) What is the best thing / worst thing about what you do?

The challenge of new works for percussion has been a great adventure. Works by Boulez or Wuorinen that require great concentration and stamina (both physical and mental) gives the player a sense of accomplishment and a sort of Zen sense of refreshing your life daily, a rebirth with each performance. Other works, the gentler or slower compositions, require a delicacy of approach, a maturity and ability to let go of those activities that call on the ego to be in the moment, propelled by a history of ‘hearing’.

Traveling the world as part of what I do has also been a great joy. Recent travels to Mongolia and China have led to new friendships and a view of a world broader and more beautiful than I could have imagined. Trips to Europe, the “old World” are so fulfilling in the way the Europeans celebrate their artists and Art that it refreshes the spirit.  New Music in North America is often looked at as superfluous or too hard to understand.

What’s the worst thing? At some point, a freelance artist is convinced to “take every gig”. This can lead to getting stretched too thin. The balance between paying the rent and playing at your best is compromised. The constant pull to justify Art with audiences and sales that can only apply to popular music is frustrating. The desire to advertise with hype and manipulative ‘spin’ degrades the real reason for composing, listening to and performing new music.

3) Who do you like to listen to or watch?

Arraymusic, Continuum, New Music Concerts, Trio Fibonacci, SMCQ, Berlin Phil, Ian Desouza, Dixie Chicks, Jimi Hendrix, Zappa, Miles, George Russel’s Othello Ballet Suite, Stravinsky, anything by Linda Catlin Smith, Martin Arnold, Morton Feldman, Boulez, violinist Mark Fewer…

4) What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?

reading minds, invisibility, flying.

5) When you’re just relaxing (and not working) what is your favourite thing to do?

Watching movies, having good food and drink, reading books. playing computer games.

5 more questions concerning Rick Sacks’ solo Electronic Show Jan 14th.

1) How does working with an electronic drumkit challenge you?

It’s easy to be cool on an electronic drum kit, and the MaletKat is a compelling midi controller that can impress a viewer easily. The challenge is to get good compositions that use these instruments in ways other than the ways they were meant to be used (primarily for pop and jazz).  I  have been soliciting and commissioning new works for these instruments for some time.  This concert will bring together the first batch.

2) What do you love about the compositions in your January 14th concert?

Each composition requires a different set of performance elements.

  • David Lidov and Luke Nickel use MAX, the programming language to bring text into play in different ways.
  • Darren Copeland uses MAX as well but through Kenaxis, a ‘MAX front end’ developed by Stefan Smulovitz, himself an electronic music composer.  Darren’s piece is very complex, requiring the performer to understand different banks of keyboard configurations that enable the MalletKat to control, using only the keys, volume, transposition, granular synthesis, pan, looping, recording and playback of folders of pre-recorded material. Very challenging.
  • My own works are ‘sketches’, one using mbira samples and recorded sequences, the other, using a piano and string sound tuned to the Bolen-Pierce scale, a microtonal scale used by Peter Hannon in a piece that I performed in Boston last year. Peter configured the MalletKat with this scale, claps of thunder and a bass ostinato and gave me permission to improvise using his compositional elements.

I had been commissioned by Red Sky Performance, Toronto’s premiere theatre and dance company focusing on the world’s indigenous peoples to create music for a collaboration between Red Sky and New Zealand’s Black Grace Dance Ensemble. For this project I bought a set of Roland V-Drums. With the MalletKat I was able to become a one-man-band switching between the drum kit and the mallet instrument, triggering sequences and soloing along, following the dancer’s movements with punctuations and grooves, occasionally listening to a discreet ‘click track’  programmed to make tempo changes along with pre-recorded bed tracks, filling with huge samples from Native Instruments and East West technologies. I have been collecting and creating sound libraries for years now and have almost unlimited choices in various hard drives accessed by a laptop. The pleasures of an electronic percussion geek.

Red SKy

Rick Sacks with Red Sky friends / collaborators. Click on the picture to get to the Red Sky page including a video sample.

3) Do you have a favourite composition?

I have favourite pieces to listen to and favourite pieces to perform. Last year, with Aventa, I learned the vibraphone part to Boulez’s Derive II. It was a tremendous challenge to learn, and performing it was the closest I will get to jumping off an airplane and skimming a mountain with webbing between arms and chest. This year I also performed in Charles Wuorinen’s Percussion Symphony produced by Robert Aitken’s New Music Ensemble. These works require extreme concentration, stamina and preparation.

As for listening to music there’s a lot that I love: Ives and Feldman are American transcendentalists. Linda Catlin Smith’s music has elements of this genre but includes a layer of beauty sculpted using an intuitive, yet meticulous, technique.

I can listen to country music, minimalist pattern pieces, electronic music, baroque and romantic works, all channeling into slightly different places in my brain, triggering memories, oddly familiar emotional ‘places’ or new insights into the immediate place and time I am experiencing them in.

4) How do you relate to new music as a modern citizen of he world?

No matter when a person lives, there is good and bad music.  Music that panders to popular trends or the supposed requirements of the genre are destined to be unsuccessful or worse, distracting and detracting from the truer forms of expression required to reflect or propel a culture. As a musician, I have a responsibility to perform even the most obvious travesty to the best of my ability. Tiring and frustrating, I try to avoid taking jobs with music I can’t feel committed to. However, the freelance life sometimes makes this impossible. So I do my best and hope to realize the composer’s work in the way they envisioned. New Music is a catalyst for cultural growth and a way to awaken the aspirations and thought processes that can be otherwise anaesthetized by the bombardment of market forces and easy listening. This is not to say that new music cannot be a source of comfort or distraction. Sentiment, humour and irony are not forbidden areas. My main relationship to new music is more exploratory. Arraymusic, for example is much more of an R&D organization than one which pursues ‘known’ works that have been already been successfully tested.

5) Is there a composer you especially admire?

I admire all composers.  This is not a field that brings popular appreciation or monetary wealth. To be a composer is to dedicate oneself to a life of solitude, risk and constant critical observation by (hopefully) a discerning audience.

Rick Sacks in motion

Rick Sacks in motion

Rick Sacks Solo Electronic Show” is coming up on January 14th 2012.  Saturday, January 14th,
8:00 pm
The Array Studio
60 Atlantic Avenue
Suite 218
INFO: 416-532-3019

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Super 8

Posted on December 23, 2011 by barczablog

I just saw Super 8, a film with Steven Spielberg’s name on it as producer, written and directed by JJ Abrams.  While Abrams has amassed an impressive resume (as a writer, producer, director or combination thereof for Armageddon, Regarding Henry, the 2009 Star Trek, Cloverfield, Mission Impossible III, and the brand-new Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol), it feels like Abrams’ tribute to Spielberg.

Start with the simple fact that this is a film about making film.  When I think about it there are an immense number of films about film-making.  There are films like Singin’ In the Rain, or Sunset Boulevard that invoke various aspects of the Hollywood film industry.  I can’t recall one that framed a larger action with such a humble frame-work.

The super 8 medium is not to be confused with the big-budget CGI-filled products one finds at the Cineplex.  One points the camera, hopefully mounted on a tripod, because without a steady-cam you get a very messy finished product.  If you’re not careful your film is gone before you know it.  As I watched I was reminded of the current crusade to preserve film-stock, spear-headed by Martin Scorsese.   Spielberg is also prominent in this movement.  I can’t help but think that film preservation and the irreplaceable treasure of film stock is a key subtext of Super 8.

I want to take a moment to list echoes I heard of Spielberg films.

  • At least three Spielberg films come to mind with references to extra-terrestrials, namely ET, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and War of the Worlds.  While we’re at it, allow me to state up front that I never liked ET, a film that I found very grandiose in its mission to be great, particularly John Williams pompous pounding score at the conclusion when Spielberg blasts us with the film’s self-importance.  Close Encounters, in contrast, is as sweet and delicate at the end as ET is pretentious.  As in Close Encounters we see machines spontaneously start up, and as in both films, we again watch an alien vessel ascend majestically into the sky.  As in War of the Worlds we watch the collapse of the social contract, people pushed beyond neighbourly limits by fear. And as in Close Encounters, some of the authorities issue bogus evacuation instructions to a gullible populace who are manipulated without scruple.  And the labyrinthine military apparatus is also back once more, as in Close Encounters and ET.  As in War of the Worlds we expect to encounter death in the alien corridors.
  • Jaws is not just about sharks.  We watch an overmatched bureaucrat struggling manfully to reconcile truth with responsibility, pressured by his town and charged with protecting his friends, family and neighbours.  We see the same dynamic again, complete with the questions of conspiracy, freedom, and corruption.
  • Empire of the Sun shows us a child struggling to survive in a place where civilization has collapsed.  In that case it’s a prison camp during WW II, but the resonances are powerful.
  • ET and Hook call for extraordinary ensemble performances from groups of children.  In both films, as in Empire of the Sun, we see some kind of rupture between children and adults, leading to some kind of break-through or reconciliation.  While I complained about ET above, and Hook too has heavy-handed moments, I love Spielberg’s ambitions.

I don’t want to say any more for fear of spoiling the film for anyone seeing it.  But the funniest thing is to recognize that the trailer profoundly misrepresents the film.  Yes it has scary and suspenseful moments.  But it’s also a meditation on film, as the children making their film continually mirror the bizarre discourse of cinema.  We look at their reality through several lenses, none of which are reliable.  But cinema is simply another way of thinking about life.

Yes it’s true we’re in a peculiar kind of discourse, where the gender balance is crazily out of whack, whether in the gang of boys with a token girl in their midst, or the soldiers and police stomping through a testosterone-heavy world.  Abrams’ films seem to be like that (thinking of Armageddon for instance), colossal playgrounds full of overgrown boys with overgrown toys.

But the absent female is perhaps the most important element of the film.  I am not spoiling the film if I tell you that the story concerns a boy whose mother has died, a boy clinging to a necklace she left behind as a kind of magic talisman that figures in the town’s struggle for redemption.

Another thing i totally love about this film is how much happens that we can’t quite see on the screen.  In a film about film, how wonderful that the story rarely gives us a clear view of anything, from the opening train-crash on; and that by the way, was my inspiration to post this review without any photos or video, in a quiet echo of the film.  The strength of this film is not the CGI or the effects but the ensemble playing of the children, and how much we care about each of them.  At one point the child doing makeup on the film-within-the-film picks up his kit containing fake blood, calling attention again to the artifice of film.  While Super 8 is still a big budget film with several huge set-pieces, it’s most powerful in what’s left to the imagination.  I love that it makes us believe often without seeing anything clearly.

There, I don’t think I’ve really given it away.

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10 Questions for Jeanne Lamon

Posted on December 22, 2011 by barczablog

Music Director of Tafelmusik since 1981, Jeanne Lamon is praised for her virtuosity as a violinist and her strong musical leadership.  Under her direction, Tafelmusik has achieved international stature and is considered “one of the world’s top baroque orchestras” (Gramophone Magazine).  To celebrate Jeanne Lamon’s 30th anniversary as Music Director, Tafelmusik presents a special concert staging of Handel’s dramatic and rarely performed Hercules, featuring a stellar cast and dancers from Atelier Ballet at Koerner Hall from January 19 to 22.

I ask Lamon ten questions: five about herself and five about her work.

Jeanne Lamon

Jeanne Lamon, Music Director of Tafelmusik (Photographer: Sian Richards)

1) Which of your parents do you resemble (what’s your nationality / ethnic background)?

I think I resemble both my parents. Physically and perhaps personality-wise, I resemble my father more, but I got the music gene from my mother. She was a passionate music-lover and an amateur pianist. Had she lived in other circumstances and in another era, she might very well have become a professional. She helped me in my musically formative years in so many ways; she accompanied me on the piano, taught me how to practice and even in some ways, how to listen to music.

2) What is the best thing / worst thing about what you do?

What a difficult question that is! The best part is that I get to play the music I most love with people I love. The worst part has to be the heavy load of administrative work that goes with the job. There seem to be endless meetings, emails, programming questions, personnel matters, and so on. We have a wonderful staff at Tafelmusik who organize everything, but there are still many administrative things that only the music director can do.

3) Who do you like to listen to or watch?

I have to admit that I seldom listen to music in my down time. Not that “down time” is something I have very much of. But I’m busy with music so much of the time, that to relax I mostly crave silence. I do have to admit to a weakness for CBC Radio One (preferred car listening) and on holidays, Chopin piano music and Cesaria Evora.

4) What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?

I wish I had good keyboard skills to facilitate score study. And I wish I
were taller!

5) When you’re just relaxing (and not working) what is your favourite thing to do?

Be outdoors, either walking, canoeing, swimming or just reading a book.

5 more questions concerning the presentation of Handel’s Hercules with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra & Chamber Choir.

1)    How does conducting Hercules challenge you?

It’s a work I didn’t know at all, so as is the case with any completely new work, there is a challenge in getting to know it intimately so that you can begin to make it your own. That’s when the creative fun part starts! Also, the choir will be in the balcony way up high, so I imagine that conducting them from the stage might be challenging! And I will be switching off between playing my violin and conducting the choruses. Doing that with grace and ease might be challenging.

2) What do you love about Handel’s Hercules?

Allyson Mchardy

Soprano Allyson Mchardy as Dejanira

The plot is full of dramatic tension and there is amazing character development, especially on the part of the lead female role, Dejanira, sung by Allyson McHardy. The music is truly Handel at his best. It has everything from beautiful laments to dramatic mad scenes to happy duets. I love how Handel can capture an emotional moment unfailingly with the simplest musical gesture. It’s a masterpiece.

3) Do you have a favourite piece or aria in Hercules, something you’re looking forward to interpreting and hearing with Tafelmusik?

The whole thing! Iöle’s lament, Hyllus’ final aria where he’s upset about
his father (Hercules) dying, but for all the wrong reasons (“I hope his
enemies don’t hear about this; they might celebrate”), to the amazingly
profound and timeless chorus about “Jealousy” and its uselessness. Ah, the
human condition!

4) How do you relate to Handel’s Hercules as a modern woman?

The women in Hercules are central and they are strong. I find the male
characters a bit less interesting, perhaps a bit more two-dimensional. True,
Dejanira is crazed with jealousy, but she is also remarkably self-aware and
willing to grow, change, learn and suffer along the way. Her openness
emotionally is something to emulate (what I really wish is that I could sing
like her!)

5) Is there a performance or a recording of Hercules that you especially admire (whether it’s a historically informed version or not)?

There are two good ones that I know of, one directed by John Elliot Gardiner and the other by Marc Minkowski. Now that I know the work, I have some strong differences of opinion with both, but they are certainly well done and worth hearing, at least until there is a Tafelmusik version!

Handel’s Hercules will be presented in a semi-staged production, with Stage direction by Marshall Pynkoski and Choreography by Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, at Koerner Hall, The Royal Conservatory of Music TELUS Centre Thurs Jan 19 – Sat Jan 21 at 8 PM and Sunday Jan 22 at 3:30 PM.
Box Office: 416.408.0208 or www.tafelmusik.org

Jeanne Lamon with her colleagues

Tafelmusik Music Director Jeanne Lamon (Photographer: Sian Richards)

Posted in Interviews | 5 Comments

Dublin Messiah

Posted on December 18, 2011 by barczablog
Kevin Mallon

Aradia Ensemble conductor Kevin Mallon

The second annual Dublin Messiah presented by Aradia Ensemble was not sold out.  I wish I could comfort Aradia conductor & Artistic Director Kevin Mallon, considering that the competition — Toronto Symphony who are 90 years old, and Tafelmusik more than 30 years old–seem to draw more people.  They have had a bit of a head start.  Even so Glenn Gould studio was quite full even if not 100% sold-out: and it certainly deserved to be, based on what I heard tonight.

I feel much clearer about this than I did last year when I first heard Aradia & Mallon undertake this score, which aims to emulate the Messiah in its earliest incarnation, as opposed to the ones usually encountered (as there are many options and possibilities), whether in the choices of text & instrumentation, or in the simple (if somewhat ironical) insistence that we remain seated for the Hallelujah Chorus.

And while we’re talking about that famous number, I think I get it now.  I’ve been listening to the piece all my life, and sang the tenor part in my choir as we performed it a few times.  There used to be an expectation that everyone will sing it loudly and enthusiastically from beginning to end: which not only makes no sense, but come to think of it, begins to be offensive if those words are to have any meaning.  A “Hallelujah” that is brayed or shouted protesteth too much, and therefore becomes a kind of perjury.  The historically informed performances I’ve encountered have problematized so many of the old assumptions that I find myself now wondering.

And of course, while “Hallelujah” is a kind of celebration, it makes no sense that it should begin with the volume control turned to 10 out of 10.  I’d previously encountered a few examples of performances that start more modestly, building over the course of the number.  Mallon and Aradia exemplify such a fascinating choice, bringing great intensity to the beginning of the work, even if they sing the opening phrases more quietly than usual.

That pattern could be writ large through the evening.  The text made sense to me as never before, not just because it was easy to hear, but more importantly, because the shape of phrases was based on the clear enunciation of the words:

  • When Virginia Hatfield sang “I know that my Redeemer liveth” she did not emphasize any syllable in the phrase.  The mistake some make is to make “know” a bit louder than the rest of the phrase.  But if you know that your redeemer liveth, the emphasis paradoxically makes you sound like a liar.  If you really know it, you would say it as casually as if you are telling me the time, affirming something central to your being, and not exhorting me and assuming that i am an atheist in need of conversion. Hatfield, perhaps with Mallon’s help, gets it, and won me over because she sounds so convinced herself.
  • When the chorus sang “Worthy Is the Lamb”, or come to think of it, any other phrase, they could have been talking rather than singing difficult music.  Every phrase was shaped like a sentence, as clear and as lucid as Handel could wish.
Virginia Hatfield

Soprano Virginia Hatfield

There’s a lot more to historically informed performance than merely playing quickly on the old instruments.

I think after reading Mallon’s answers to the questions posed in a recent interview, I understand his interpretations in an entirely different way.  While it’s a truism that music based on a text requires a clear understanding of that text, one rarely finds such integrity when the texts in question are religious.  Mallon gets his chorus & soloists beyond mere enunciation and musicianship.

I was especially curious to hear “He was despised”, considering Mallon’s comments in the interview.  (see the second question three concerning Mallon’s favourite number).  When someone has told you their favourite number, you listen more closely.  And we should not be surprised that this was perhaps the highlight of the evening, as sung by counter-tenor Scott Belluz.  The number contains two wildly divergent and contrasting sections.  It begins with a slow and pathetic complaint, interrupted by portrayal of torture in the middle section, Mallon driving this section more than I’ve ever heard.

Indeed, each of the soloists had their opportunity to not only shine, but to carry the work on their back.  Hatfield was radiant in the nativity section, and again at the opening of Part III.  Joseph Schnurr was gripping through the torments of Section II when the tenor is like a narrator.  Belluz sang his numbers with great clarity and exceptional decorations in his da capo verses, always seeming to be the calm at the eye of the storm.  And Giles Tompkins used his warm rich tone to great effect, lending authority whenever he stepped forward.  I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a Messiah with such strength in the soloists.

Mallon made the Messiah come to life for me, vivid as a reading of Biblical texts through a series of virtuoso vocal performances.  This man is always having fun up there, leading a very relaxed group of artists who played without fear but never without conviction & passion.  Every now and then Mallon threw us a curve, right up to the final page of the score, when he gave us a drum solo at the very close of the Amen: a brilliant, stagey touch.

One of these days Aradia & Mallon will offer a CD version of the Dublin Messiah, hopefully with the same soloists we heard tonight.  But in the meantime, these performances are precious and rare, in a city over-flowing with Messiahs. 

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Bed and Breakfast

Posted on December 18, 2011 by barczablog
David and Ann Powell

Puppetmongers David and Ann Powell

While the audience for Puppetmongers’ Bed & Breakfast includes children, the play contains plenty of adult laughs of which the kids are blissfully unaware.  Originally a one-person show written by and for Ann Powell (if it’s accurate to call something a one-person show when that one person impersonates a houseful), its current incarnation, directed by Sue Miner, employs both her and brother David Powell.  There’s so much to look at –beginning with the delightful little figures in a luscious little home—that there’s no chance a child would be bored.

While Bed & Breakfast is over twenty years old (in various productions), Puppetmongers are in their thirty-seventh season.

puppets

Teaching about puppets, teaching with puppets

Ann and David Powell are so much more than puppeteers, whether writing, designing, building, manipulating their creations, or taking acting parts in their plays.  Afterwards, in the face to face encounters with their young fans –eager to see their magical creations up close—they also take on roles somewhere between teachers and evangelists.

While the theatrical world is supposedly cyclical, fashions regularly coming and going, puppets seem to be everywhere lately:

  • This afternoon I listened to the Metropolitan Opera broadcast of Anthony Minghella’s production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, remarkable for its use of a puppet playing Butterfly’s young child.
  • This past year I finally saw the manipulated artificial wildlife populating the stage in Julie Taymor’s production of Lion King (admittedly a show from several years ago).
  • As I type this I am listening to a Saturday Night Live sketch about War Horse, another play using puppets. 

Perhaps puppets are now making a kind of transition, from a separate category, to a regular part of the theatrical toolkit, alongside lights, sound, and projections (which at one time were also considered radical).  From now on, don’t be surprised when you see puppets at the theatre.  They’re not just for children, and indeed are turning up in decidedly serious and adult situations.

But whether puppets take over the world or not, Puppetmongers will continue to quietly work their magic, whether in Toronto or possibly touring elsewhere in Canada.  Ann & David Powell will beguile your children, and if you choose to accompany them –for instance to Bed & Breakfast –chances are you will find yourself laughing your head off with all the other adults.

Bed & Breakfast can be seen at the Tarragon Extra Space, 30 Bridgman Ave, Dec 18th, a break for Christmas, then resuming Dec 26th until January 1st 2012.  For more info call 416-531-1827 or go to www.puppetmongers.com.

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Christmas Messiah

Posted on December 13, 2011 by barczablog

If it’s Advent season–the time immediately preceding Christmas–then it’s time for ballet companies to erase their deficits with the help of Tschaikowsky and The Nutcracker.   It’s time to shop for presents, time to eat drink and be merry.

Handel

Balthasar Denner's portrait of Handel

And –in Toronto at least–it means many versions of Handel’s Messiah.

  • The Toronto Symphony presents something they call “Toronto’s Favourite Messiah” possibly based on ticket sales  (five performances in a bigger venue)
  • Aradia ensemble’s “Dublin Messiah“
  • Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir (four performances plus an additional sing-along Messiah).

In preparation I thought I’d pull out my three historically informed performance (aka “HIP”) Messiahs.  Handel’s great oratorio is in three parts, the first of which pertains to Christmas.  With the seasonal connection in mind, I’m going to briefly compare Part One in those three recordings.

Whose recordings?
1)     Trevor Pinnock leading The English Concert & Choir in 1988, with Arleen Auger, soprano, Anne Sofie von Otter, contralto, Michael Chance alto, Howard Crook Tenor and John Tomlinson, Bass.  I obtained this in my first blush of HIP-ness, around 1989, when I went a little nuts for this kind of performance, also buying all of Norrington’s Beethoven & Schubert symphonies, works by Schumann & Mendelssohn and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique.
2)     Paul McCreesh leading the Gabrieli Consort & Players, recorded in 1996, with Dorothea Röschmann soprano, Susan Gritton, soprano II, Bernarda Fink, Contralto, Charles Daniels, tenor and Neal Davies, Bass.  I’d heard excerpts of this on CBC, and needed little persuading.  Previously I’d bought multiple versions of Wagner’s Ring, and now it seemed I was likely to do the same with Messiah
3)     Nikolaus Harnoncourt leading Concentus Musicus Wien in 2004, with Christine Schäfer soprano, AnnaLarsson, Alto, as well as Canadians Michael Schade, Tenor and Gerald Finley, Bass.  I only heard of this in 2010, so I’ve lived with this one for only a few months.

I assumed I’d remain loyal to Pinnock no matter who else came along.  I’ve seen this phenomenon before –perhaps most tellingly with Solti’s Ring—where people become attached to the first version they encounter.  I think the same thinking is behind the disrespect current casts get on Saturday Night Live, compared to the first cast who, after all, were part of a cultural happening.  But never mind, the relative merits of different SNL casts is a topic for another post.

Pinnock continues to wear well, even though the sound is better on the two more recent recordings.  When it comes to the final two numbers—“Worthy is the Lamb” and the Amen—I am still very loyal to Pinnock, whose grandeur and clarity slays me.  While I am wandering in the other parts of Messiah, my single favourite chorus –”Lift Up Your Heads”—is given its most persuasive performance in McCreesh’s reading, a stunning piece of drama as one part of the chorus interrogates the other (and sorry I cannot show these to you via youtube).

But wait, I’m only supposed to talk about Part One!

I am briefly going to puff out my chest as a Canadian, concerning the men on the 2004 recording conducted by Harnoncourt.

Michael Schade’s English is wonderfully peaceful in expressing the sentiment “Comfort Ye”.  As an ambassador for peace, he is wonderfully tranquil.  If I were carrying weapons I would have laid them down in homage.  In the aria that follows he proclaims the good news of “Ev’ry Valley”.

Gerald Finley

Canadian Gerald Finley

The other Canadian? Gerald Finley is completely believable portraying God.  I never really bought those lines until now: when the bass sings “Thus saith the Lord” and then proceeds to speak as though he were the Lord.  Finley’s God is not one of those pompous thunderers I’ve heard elsewhere, self-conscious or grandiose.  Finley is fearless and direct, and as a result scared me more in these passages than I would have thought possible.

But wait.  Whereas my other two recordings are from English ensembles & choirs, Harnoncourt works with two European women soloists & a European choir.  How do they fare? Astonishingly well, it turns out.  This choir is clearer in some of the truly difficult numbers than either of the other two ensembles.

  • Exhibit A: “For Unto Us a Child is Born” is deceptively difficult (I recall a conductor telling us, his choir, to beware of the temptation to sing “for unto WUSS a child is born”).  Every syllable is clear.
  • Exhibit B: “And He Shall Purify”.  Harnoncourt had a rather clever idea, which is to say, he takes this chorus at a slower pace than what I am accustomed (either in the two recordings or in live performances I’ve been to).  The chorus articulates the coloratura flames as exquisitely as if they were truly flickering tongues of fire, undulating with perfect clarity.  I was prepared to dislike what Harnoncourt was doing, not least because of his foreign-born chorus, but came around in spite of myself.  This is the version of this chorus that I now prefer, startlingly original and yes, very very beautiful.

There’s something wonderful in each of these recordings, each of which has held my attention for awhile.  But recently, in an interview with Kevin Mallon, I realized –oh no– that there are other recordings I need to obtain, given that I don’t own either of his two favourites (John Eliot Gardiner & Christopher Hogwood).  I suppose that will have to be remedied at some point.

And while we’re on the topic: Merry Christmas.

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Wyers subjectivities

Posted on December 10, 2011 by barczablog

I posted a piece about painter Brian Wyers November 29th, and knew I’d have more to say.  This is a continuation.

I am again fascinated by a Wyers painting that’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.  Perhaps painters or art-critics would look and be more blasé.  I think it’s every bit as wacky as the fish-bicycle painting I spoke of last time, possessed of a surreal quality, although I feel that the use of that word is a cop-out because there’s so much more to this painting than just taking us out of this world and into another.  Perhaps I should describe it first.

This painting is, first and foremost, a kind of tour de force.  Any painters reading this likely know better than I what constitutes a real technical achievement, or in other words, whether this is a genuine achievement, or just a painting that managed to impress me, who is perhaps not sophisticated enough to know.  Virtuosity is sometimes an illusion created by a level of sophistication –or the lack thereof—in the viewer.  Just yesterday I was playing a Scarlatti Sonata, lots and lots of fast notes, that elicited a comment of admiration from someone who didn’t realize this was precisely what Scarlatti was aiming for (and it wasn’t especially difficult to play).    Sometimes a viewer in a particular place/context may be impressed by something that would not impress those in another place; if you go to another historical era, the skill level is so different that the standard for “excellence” is substantially different, the unspoken benchmarks of the spectacular for the audience having changed many times over.  And so, after saying this, I believe this painting should be recognized as spectacular even if the average viewer might not get that they’re looking at something magical, nor even be aware that their perceptions were being teased.

The painting is called “To Gilda”.  I had no idea what the title signified until I asked Wyers, who explained that it’s short for “to gild a lily.”  It reminds me of one of those cute song names by Frank Zappa such as “The Ocean is the Ultimate Solution”, where the title doesn’t really tell you anything (no offense Frank: wherever you are) 

In the foreground (back to Wyers’ painting) we are either looking at an immense white flower, or perhaps a normal sized flower in such an intimate close-up as to seem to be impossibly close to your face, foreshortened by the uncommon perspective.  Behind the flower?  A wall with gold-leaf wallpaper decorated with flowers.  In some respects the wallpaper is banal, something we’ve seen before and perhaps never noticed.  For some reason Wyers has juxtaposed his outrageous white flower with the wallpaper.  Some reason?  It’s a brilliant choice, as we look at this super-flower in front of the floral illustration on the gold-leaf wallpaper.  By using the gold-leaf Wyers creates a really bizarre effect of the light, illuminating the room indirectly.  Any light bounces off that wallpaper in the most lurid fashion.   And that wall’s surface is so hyper-real that one can feel its smoothness.  The effect on my eye is what blew me away, the unexpected illumination it brought into the room because the gold leaf seems to amplify the light.

We are left in the curious position of sharing the subjectivity of that white flower, as if the flower were itself looking at the wallpaper and critiquing the two-dimensional ersatz flowers.  Curiously, we’re looking over the flower’s shoulder: which shouldn’t be possible.

A flower with subjectivity?

I am reminded of a moment in the Muppets Christmas (from many many years ago), where Rowlf the Dog (from The Muppet Show) meets Sprocket, Doc’s pet dog (from Fraggle Rock). Whereas Rowlf talks like a human and plays the piano all Sprocket can do is bark, being a slightly more realistic puppet than Ralph.  In a magically absurd moment Rawlf stares into the barking Sprocket’s barking face to which the cynical Rawlf replies,  “yeah: bow wow”, a meeting of delicious absurdity.  Just as dogs of different orders met one another in Jim Henson’s worlds, so too with the encounter of plants in Wyers’ painting.

Gilda

Gold leafed Gilda, by Brian Wyers

And if that weren’t enough subjectivity –from the flower among the plants– I want to segue into a more human realm for two more paintings that are becoming a recurring pattern for Wyers, because there is at least a third painting using this trope… but although i know if it, i have not seen it so let’s just focus on these two for now.  In each case he puts something intimate and perhaps even psychological on a kind of ideal beach.  I think of these as self-portraits.  One is a picture of a girl dancing; one is a picture of a person in ballet slippers (possibly a girl, but it’s difficult to be certain of the gender when we see only a little bit of him/her).  Even if both of them are actually females you may think it odd of me that I would call these self-potraits given that Brian is a guy.  But I am speaking in terms of paintings capturing a drama of the psyche or the soul, and those don’t entail a precise painting of our physical reality.  No, the internal drama requires the imagination to portray what’s happening inside.  While I don’t think that’s what Wyers thought he was doing that’s how I see them.  I’d compare them to Mahler’s Song of the Earth, where he sets six songs alternately between male and female voice; just because three of the six call for a female voice doesn’t mean that they’re any less about Mahler’s soul.  No, he brings out something different in the presence of the female voice, but it’s still essentially him.

This example –not a digression but an illustration– is the fourth song, “On Beauty”;  the woman’s voice first situates us in a quiet place among girls observing flowers, but then a bunch of boys arrive on horseback about three minutes into the piece, a violent eruption in every sense of the word.

Just as Mahler wants us to experience both yin and yang, i think it’s the same for Wyers.

“Trip the light fantastic” shows part of a dancing figure.  I find this to be a very inspiring image.  While the space might be a beach I’ve seen sometime –perhaps Georgian Bay?—the choreography seems more internal and hypothetical than genuine.  This is the sort of image that we’re told to picture when we confront something painful, when we seek to find our way through a struggle.  We don’t see the complete girl, encouraging us to enter into her process as she dances, and as a result, to engage in her subjectivity as she dances.  Banal as it sounds, the image is wonderfully inspiring.  She dances without any sign of an audience, nor of music.  Does there have to be a real beach?  I don’t think so.  And there doesn’t have to be a girl either, as I believe this is really Wyers’ spirit in the painting.  As with Gilda, Wyers is again playing a bit in his title, as the word “light” has at least two meanings.

Trip the Light Fantastic

Trip the Light Fantastic from Brian Wyers

“Skywalker” is the name of the other incomplete figure on a beach, a very small part of a tightrope walker, balancing with exquisite care.    The landscape reminds me of “Trip the Light Fantastic”, the same beach of dreams.  For me, both the dancer and the tightrope walker enact internal dramas, evoking subtle questions.  I think we saw similar landscapes in the meditative last portions of  Mallick’s film Tree of Life, as we did in the early portions of Wenders Wings of Desire.  I think it’s fair to say that these compositions are exploring a well-established trope, a kind of spiritual landscape.  Because of the way the images are composed (in the films and in Wyers’ paintings) we seem to be viewing something abstract or something on another plane, something that is as playful as it is profound.  While we are outside for both paintings, we are also inside: as we are reflecting upon something internal, subjective, and if you’ll excuse the Jungian overtones of this usage: archetypal.

Tightrope

We’re outside on the inside

Did Wyers know that we’d have this experience looking at his figures on the beach?   I have to think so.

~~~~~~

Wyers art can be found in Ayrspace.ca –a group of painters showing in Ayr Ontario– and in Artspace in Oakville.

Posted in Art, Architecture & Design, Essays | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

10 Questions for Kevin Mallon

Posted on December 3, 2011 by barczablog

Kevin Mallon is the Artistic Director of Aradia Ensemble;  he will be conducting The Dublin Messiah December 17th at the Glenn Gould Studio.

I ask Mallon ten questions: five about himself and five about his work.

1) Which of your parents do you resemble (what’s your nationality / ethnic background)?

Kevin Mallon

Kevin Mallon, Artistic Director of Aradia Ensemble

Although I define myself as Irish and lived all of my young life in Belfast, I was actually born in Newark New Jersey! (This usually makes my American friends laugh for some reason!) My grandfather on my father’s side had immigrated to America. However, he had become ill with cancer. My father, recently graduated as a doctor and his young bride, went over to the USA to care for his him. I was born while they were there. Until very recently I told everyone that I had left America to return to Ireland when I was six weeks old, but have recently learnt that this was only a trip home to show me off to the family back in Ireland. My mother told me recently that we then returned to the USA for a while. But eventually we settled in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

In truth, I think I resemble my mother the most. She was a music teacher and although my father was also an amateur musician, I‘m sure I got my music from my mother.

2) What is the best thing / worst thing about what you do?

The best thing I do is that I get to perform, or record a wide range of music. The summer before last, I met up with some old school friends from music school in England, who I hadn’t seen in some twenty years. Although some of them were successful musicians, many had gone in other directions. It made me feel that my efforts to stick by it were worthwhile.

The worst thing that I do, as a conductor, is not anything to do with the music, but rather the vast amount of artistic administration I need to do—about three hours a day! I am involved with many enterprises (with orchestras in Toronto, Ottawa and New York) and this takes a lot of organizing. I don’t resent it, but it certainly takes up a lot of time and energy.

3) Who do you like to listen to or watch?

Roger Norrington

Conductor Roger Norrington

In truth, I don’t listen to classical music for pleasure! Mostly, for fun I am listening to a lot of Jazz or Irish music. Having said that, I am a big record/CD collector. (Yes, I still listen to records!) So, I am often listening to lots of stuff that I am working on. For example, I have just started to work on performing the complete Beethoven symphonies in New York, so I have been listening to the pioneering recordings by Norrington and Gardiner. Also, I like the set with Nikolaus Harnoncourt with modern instruments, an approach I am trying to emulate.

I watch a lot of movies, having recently just given up on TV. Also, I try to watch lots of comedies—am rather addicted to a silly BBC series called Coupling, right now! I absolutely love Youtube and can spend hours watching performances, especially of violinists of the old school.

4) What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?

This is a very good, yet difficult question to answer. It’s not that there are not a multitude of things that I wish I could do, or do better, but I have spent a lifetime making use of the resources I do have. This is an important outlook for me especially as I get older, because I can tend to beat myself up about what I think I should be achieving.

My skill with other languages is weak and it is something I am working on. I used to have a certain facility on the piano, but really gave that up one time in college when instead of the Beethoven sonata I was supposed to play, I could only really manage Lady Madonna-you know the Beatles song!

5) When you’re just relaxing (and not working) what is your favourite thing to do?

I find it difficult to relax as such—and even in down time am often working at something to do with music. But I have been blessed with many good friends, and a wonderful girlfriend, so there are always social occasions to attend or parties to throw—I love to cook. I was once an avid reader—something I have lost of late and which I am hoping to rediscover. With so many demands on my time, it is often difficult for me to carve out the time needed for myself. I know it, I say it, yet I don’t do what I know or say!

5 more questions about conducting various Messiahs–hoping it’s not a sacrilege to say that– particularly, the upcoming presentation of The Dublin Messiah.

1)    How does the Dublin Messiah challenge you?

Funnily enough, even though I have conducted Messiah many times now, and particularly this, my own reconstruction of the 1st performance in Dublin, it is still a challenging thing to put together. There is never enough rehearsal time and so part of the conductor’s art is figuring what to do in the limited time to get maximum results. This year I have three out of the four soloists who are new to doing it with me, and indeed there are a lot of new players in the Aradia orchestra, so you have to try to get the best out of everyone and to get them to feel relaxed while you still cover everything musically. In rehearsal this year there will also be a film crew following us around who will be doing a documentary about the Hallelujah chorus. So, there is a lot to keep together!

2) What do you love about Handel’s Messiah, particularly the Dublin Messiah?

Score of the Messiah

1773 Score of Messiah: "an oratorio in score as it was originally perform'd / composed by Mr. Handel to which are added his additional alterations."

Performing a lot of Baroque music, it is always evident that the composers of the time saved their special efforts in reflection of their devotion to God. This is something that is often difficult to appreciate in our modern, secular world. So, it was with Bach or Handel that in the religious works we see a special effort made to write for the glory of god. (At the end of the manuscript of Messiah, Handel wrote the letters “SDG”—Soli Deo Gloria an abbreviation of the words “To God alone the glory”.)

The fact that this musical composition—one of the great canons of Western Music was first performed in my home country of Ireland has always made me proud!

3)    Do you have a favourite number in the Messiah: something that you’re looking forward to hearing?

The truth is that there is hardly a weak moment in Messiah. The Hallelujah chorus is famous for a reason- it is a superb piece of music, but for me when you have done all of the oratorio and you hit the last few bars on the words Amen, it always sends shivers down my spine.

Susanna Cibber

Susanna Cibber, who sang the very first performance of “He was despised.”

“He was despised” is for me, probably the most moving aria. One can only imagine the first performance: Susanna Cibber (sister of the English composer Thomas Arne) was by all accounts renowned for her ability to move the audience emotionally. Charles Burney wrote of her singing “by a natural pathos, and perfect conception of the words, she often penetrated the heart, when others, with infinitely greater voice and skill, could only reach the ear.”

When she sang, “He was despised” she so affected the Rev. Patrick Delany, chancellor of St. Patrick’s Cathedral that he is reported to have leapt to his feet and exclaimed: “Woman, for this be all thy sins forgiven thee!

(Several years ago at the Aradia Dublin Messiah we had an actor depict Delany and do likewise!)

4) How do you relate to the Dublin Messiah as a modern man?

Although Handel first performed Messiah in April of 1742, with the oratorio covering the Christmas and Easter stories, it has become traditional to perform it at Christmas. As such the Christmas sentiment gives me reason to pause and reflect on peace on Earth, goodwill towards men, positive beliefs, love, peace and joy.

I find it heartening that, amidst all the problems we have, mankind can still come together and find and encourage peace and goodwill.

That is why I love the following moment in Messiah when the soprano sings:

And suddenly there was with the angel a
multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying:
Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, goodwill towards men.

It is on the word Glory that we hear the first entry of the two trumpets! Another great moment, that gets me every time!

5) Is there a recording of the Messiah that you especially admire (whether it’s a historically informed version or not)?

The version of Messiah I have listened to for most of my adult life was that of my mentor and teacher John Eliot Gardiner. I think it is hard to be bettered. I also like Hogwood’s reconstruction of the 1754 Foundling Hospital version. Of course the one I am looking forward to is the one Aradia will make in 2013 of the Dublin Messiah!

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Kevin Mallon leads the Dublin Messiah (a reconstruction of the first performance of Handel’s Messiah) Saturday, 17 December 2011, 8pm at Glenn Gould Studio, with
the choir and orchestra of the Aradia Ensemble, and soloists Virginia Hatfield (Soprano),
Maria Soulis (Mezzo-soprano), Joseph Schnurr (Tenor) and Giles Tomkins (Bass).  For tickets call 416 -872-4255 or order online at Roy Thomson Hall.

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