CGF 34: Transatlantic

Performances in London and New York

Name That Tune

This week’s Name That Tune was submitted by Listener Jeremy. Here’s your hint: this excerpt is from this composer’s most successful stage work.

As always, your goal is to provide as much accurate analysis as possible. First try to get the nationality, year, and genre, then make educated guesses about the composer and — if possible— the piece. If you know the piece immediately, send us an email at classicalgabfest@gmail.com instead of commenting so the rest of us can have fun guessing. 

Last Week’s Results

CGF Newsletter 33
Franz Joseph Haydn, Symphony No. 45, “Farewell”

I was pretty confident in guessing Haydn, and my confidence paid off, but I don’t have much cause for cockiness, because I should have been able to nail this piece definitively in place. The “Farewell” is a major repertoire piece and probably Haydn’s most famous symphony below the 80s.

My backup guesses were Dittersdorf and Michael Haydn. Listener Jeremy zagged just to be recalcitrant, filling his bucket with the Stamitz brothers and “Franz Beck,” which is a name he probably just made up. Listener Eric, in just under the wire, went along with Haydn, but threw in CPE Bach (which I love to see) and Sammartini.

Think you can stump your fellow Listeners? Go ahead and try!

Head to our Google Form to upload a 30-second clip of an unidentified piece of classical music for us to try to identify.

Rattling the Cages

Sir Simon Rattle has weighed in on the austerity project that the current UK administration is waging against its arts sector. The full text of the speech he gave at the LSO concert has been published by the Guardian.

The last few months have been devastating for our sector. After the Arts Council’s swingeing cuts in November, which have affected all of us and left some extraordinary groups fighting for their lives, we were all stopped in our tracks by the proposed vandalism by the BBC, of which the closure of the BBC singers was only the tip of the iceberg.

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Anyone with knowledge of how an orchestra actually functions will know you can’t reduce the membership by 20% by natural wastage or in any other means—it is then no longer an orchestra and also all the years of building up a team expertise have gone out of the window. This should not need explaining.

If you actually want opera to be experienced in more parts of the country, it is ludicrous to cut the grants of the companies who do exactly that. This should not need explaining. And by the way, without an orchestra or chorus you no longer have an opera company—these are not things that can just be reassembled later, or bought in from Ikea. Or not yet at least. This should not need explaining.

So many of the problems are rooted in a political ignorance of what this art form entails, and more worryingly, there seems to be a stubborn pride in the ignorance.

I will admit to having never seen nor heard the word “swingeing” before (“severe or otherwise extreme”) but that’s on me. It’s a good speech. I wish that Rishi, my brother in plant-based dieting and elegant menswear, would see the light.

Concert Report

New York Philharmonic, Friday, April 21, 2023
Iván Fischer, conductor

Dedicated readers of the Gabfest Newsletter (should we keep calling it that at this point? I’m open to suggestions) will know that I went to New York this past weekend to witness Joey’s second doctoral recital, featuring the music of William White and un certain Maurice Ravel. I’m not going to write that up in a concert report since I’m just way too biased, and all I have to say are good things (I do hope that Joseph will write something about it from the performer’s perspective though.)

No, I’m going to talk about the other concert I saw that day, a matinée given by the New York Philharmonic in the newly refurbished David Geffen concert hall.

First off: the hall—depending on where you sit—sounds great. I spent the first half in a side set in the second tier, about halfway down the concert hall (whence the above photograph was taken.) The sound was rich, clear, detailed, and beautiful. Maybe not the most blended thing I’ve ever heard, but with an orchestra like the New York Phil, it doesn’t really matter, because you’re happy to hear all the detail inside the orchestra that plays so marvelously; they take care of the blend using their musicianship.

The hall looks a bit like a Delta lounge, but such is the way of the world these days.

Back to the orchestra: they are simply excellent. I don’t mean to disparage my hometown band, but the top five really are in a different class, and it was a real pleasure to hear such a brilliantly polished sound.

Ivan Fischer is a fascinating guy, mainly known for his innovative concert formats and his wild ideas about orchestral seating and placement. For example, there’s a video with him conducting the Berlin Phil in Schubert’s Great C Major symphony where he has the woodwinds sitting in the inner circle where the principal strings would normally sit.

At the concert I attended there was nothing as radical as all that, but he did opt for an echt Viennese seating chart: split violins with basses in a row at the very back of the orchestra. It sounded great, but I have a feeling it would have sounded great however they sat. 

The program began with a piece that I had never even heard of, Ernst von Dohnányi’s Symphonic Minutes. It’s a fifteen minute orchestral work in five movements. A delight from start to finish and a sparkling start to the concert.

Bartók’s third piano concerto was next on the docket, performed by Sir András Schiff. I will admit that the Bartók piano concerti don’t do especially much for me, but I will also admit that I don’t know them terribly well. I had hoped that this concert would allow me to finally *get* this piece, but it didn’t happen. I can acknowledge that it was an excellent performance however. Schiff played the first movement of the Mozart Sonata facile as his encore, a waggish move that elicited chuckles from the audience. I thought the interpretation was rather flip.

The second half of the program was Mozart’s Jupiter symphony, a work that I loved as a teenager but have cooled on somewhat, though my appreciation for its craft has deepened. Well, all I can say was, this was the performance that made me love the piece again. The playing was excellent, but the reason I enjoyed it so much was Fischer’s interpretation. It was incredibly musical, and a bit old school: his tempi were flexible, his phrasing was unfussy, and he let the orchestra play, Gott sei dank.

Classical Mixtape

Bohuslav Martinů, Quartet for oboe, violin, violoncello and piano (1947)

I (Joey) will be going to Aspen this summer, and I recently found out that an excellent oboist and former roommate of mine will be there as well. Naturally, friends who live together want to play together, and we’ve been discussing chamber music involving our instruments. He introduced me to this quartet for oboe, violin, cello, and piano, and I personally am gunning to work on this piece - I almost always find Martinů a particularly enjoyable play.