Edinburgh International Festival 2005 Programme

Thankyou,Tam, I do envy you the breadth of performances and the wonderful festivals you have in the UK and Europe. And I hope you do not take them for granted.
We will be travelling down to Townsville in July to the Townsville Festival of Chamber Music.
We try to get there each year and as it runs for a week we can treat it as a holiday. We think festivals are enhanced by the ability to relax away from home, dine out at new restaurants and generally enjoy wasteful mornings on the hotel verandah.
Anyway to all festival lovers, happy festivaling.

We are pretty well served over here. However I often think that the people of Edinburgh don't deserve theirs (better be careful or I'll get lynched come August). What I mean, is that most of the native audience is so conservative in terms of what they'll go to. A case in point was the visit of the cleveland orchestra last year, it's first and third concerts were packed while the second (the only one containing anything 'difficult') wasn't. The programme was two pieces, the names of which I can't recall, by Birtwistle and Schubert's 9th symphony. Now, I can understand why people might not be mad keen to go to Birtwistle, and to be honest I wasn't too impressed, but the Schubert was divine and worth sitting through just about anything for. However, I like have odd things in the programme that I wouldn't normally go to see, because sometimes you hear something that's excellent which you hadn't expected at all or known about before. Another case was a performance of a Schubert quartet and one by Bartok. The Schubert is of course well trodden ground and, while well played, was nothing to write home about. The Bartok on the other hand was stunning. However, many of the comments I heard as I left were along the lines of "thank god for the Schubert". OY!


regards,

Tam

We are lucky to get part of our state orchestra up here each year.
They come up by train from Brisbane and play at least two performances at each regional centre.
It is hard for many of the rural population to be interested in anything but the more popular and well known pieces but the orchestra's conductor explains and tells the story of the pieces and as such can pop in a little known composer's work and thus add to the musical knowledge of the audience.
The orchestras for many years were funded and managed by our equvilant of the BBC.
However this is no longer the case and they are responsible for not being unprofitable.
It has been suggested that if many of the classic composers had been told to shut up shop as their compositions were not popular at the time we would not enjoy the riches we are endowered with today.

This makes me remember "Trainspotting".

"I often think that the people of Edinburgh don't deserve theirs"

a sweeping statement if i saw one Edinburgh is a city of tremendous cultural diversity even if the shops are closed by 6o clock and often there is more than one concert on on an evening which places great pressure on us citizens on where to plant yer bum usher hall queens hall festival theatre or in the many cafe bars

so lack of attendance at birtwhisle might be explained by great choice or it might have been the night of the big brother final

come any time tam edinburgh would never lynch a naimed man

mike

Me comment was perhaps slightly in jest. Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad indeed to have such an excellent festival of the arts in the UK (and I happen to think Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities around). The point I was making was, essentially, that an awful lot of the EIF audience is extremely conservative when it comes to classical music, and while the birtwistle/schubert was a particularly extreme example it was, in my experience, by no means isolated.

quote:

come any time tam edinburgh would never lynch a naimed man

(sigh of relief emoticon)


regards,

Tam

hi tam

you can tell i was just kiddin

you know the problem
is eif is shanghaied by tourists
and the very rich fok of edinburgh
of which i am not one

couple of years ago they ran a series of late concerts at the usher hal a fiver any seat

bachs golberg variations on piano the usher hall was full peolpe standing

but the old aothirities didnt thank this was a good idea

i believe i read it was not in keeping with the standards of the festival

ive been many times since to the usher hall and it is never full

regards mike

It's a shame about the late night concerts isn't it. I also have to say that I wish they'd use that organ a little more now that it's restored (how about a series of £5 concerts playing bach or somesuch).

I think the argument was that the £5 tickets were subsidising the wrong kind of people (clearly they believe that anyone who likes classical music is filthy rich - something I can assure everyone is sadly not the case!).

The usher hall is fairly tough to fill, though, I suppose, but its acoustic is absolutely stunning (in fact, for its size, one of the best in the UK).


regards,

Tam

Oxgangs, maybe they thought the floor boards could be a bit weak??

good point and at one time probably true

but this was after the major refurbishment

edinburgh council are just a bit over preoccupied with income generation

just ask anyone about parking in the city
regards
mike

Well, for any who are interested, here is my report on the first two weeks of the Edinburgh International Festival (week 3 to follow).

Things started off the other Sunday (the 14th August) with a truly excellent performance of the Verdi requiem (which will be broadcast on radio 3 in September, the 11th, I think). It featured the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted wonderfully by Donald Runnicles. Sadly, the Festival Chorus continue to be very short staffed in the male department, which was the performance's only real drawback. Violeta Urmana was outstanding among a strong quartet of soloists.

Monday was even better. A visit from Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (For those of you who don't know, a youth orchestra composed of Israeli, Palestinian, Syrian and Egyptian kids) something that would be worth supporting regardless of the musical merit. Fortunately, they play very well indeed. True there are youth orchestras with more polish (this is not the Gustav Mahler youth orchestra, they come on Friday), but none that play quite so much energy and enthusiasm. The highlight of the programme was a highly charged reading of the Beethoven 5th Symphony. Barenboim then gave an interesting speech to the effect that while the orchestra obviously couldn’t bring peace, it could help understanding, hopefully. They then played the prelude to Wagner’s Tristan (apparently Israeli kids in the orchestra had asked him if they could play some Wagner). They were at the proms the day before (doing mahler 1) and that concert repeats on radio 3 on Friday afternoon. Well worth watching if they come to a concert hall near you.

Tuesday saw a slightly less star studded than expected Clamenzo di Tito. Bostridge had pulled out at the last minute (and indeed out of the recording). Still Reiner Trost stood in creditably well at the last minute. Mackerras conducted the SCO brilliantly and the other singers were excellent. Kozena was good, but I’m not quite sure I see what all the fuss is about. Sir Charles will be doing Fidelio with the SCO in October, both up here and in London as part of his 80th birthday celebrations.

Wednesday saw a disappointing Mahler 9th with the RSNO, who are definitely Scotland’s 3rd orchestra these days. However, on Thursday Runnicles returned with the BBC SSO to do a wonderful Mahler 3. A tricky symphony a the best of times, he managed to hold the tension perfectly so the end was not the let down it can be in the wrong hands. The off-stage trumpet was used to especially good effect in the 3rd movement.


regards,

Tam

Week two, and Sunday 21st, sees the first real turkey. The Tchiakovsky Symphony Orchestra Moscow Radio came. Despite having played rather well in Swan Lake all week (or at least the performance I saw) they were terrible. It wasn’t just that the tones were poor and muddy or that the horn section were woefully inadequate, no, they managed the hard task of making the Eroica dull, very dull. In the second half, a suite from War and Piece was better (thought the waltz didn’t really sound like a waltz) and in moments of the 1812 overture they displayed some polish. Sadly, it’s not a very good piece of music.

Tuesday Saw Sir Charles Mackerras’s second concert (again with the SCO and Trost). The second half was Mozart’s unfinished Zaide, which was interesting, though very definitely not the composer’s best work. Since it features melodrama (spoken text interspersed with music), we got one of Mozart’s inspirations, Ariadne auf Naxos (by Benda) in the first half, which was excellent (but then I always like to see something new.

Wednesday and the Rotterdam Philharmonic cam with Blomstedt. I saw him last year with a Leipzig orchestra and was disappointed. This year he played Tchiak 4 (which was very good) and a rather less good sinfonia concertante (which he didn’t play nearly lyrically enough for Mozart).

Thursday and we had Scottish Opera and John Adams’ controversial Death of Klinghoffer. It’s good to see them doing something, and doing it so well, given they’ve virtually gone under over the last two years, they’ve got virtually nothing programmed over the next year as it is. Anyway, the work was very powerful, and fascinating, and, to be honest, I really can’t understand why it upsets people so much, it’s not as though it condones terrorism. It was very well staged with members of the chorus being ‘kidnapped from the auditorium during the hijack. The music is typical Adams but good and highly atmospheric. The diction was a little poor, but the libretto was good (what could be heard). I’d be interested now to see Nixon in China (or his new opera Dr Atomic, about the Manhattan project).

Friday saw the return of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra (sadly absent from last year’s festival). One shouldn’t be fooled by the label of ‘youth orchestra’, these guys are amazing. Established by Abbado in the 80s as both a follow on for pupils of his EU youth orchestra and also as a means of fostering cooperation between east and west Europe. This combination of a large number of countries the players are drawn from, and their age being greater than most youth orchestras (up to 26), makes for an outstanding band. Interestingly, what struck me about them two years ago was the quality of the brass playing (I think I’ve rarely heard it so good), this time the brass were less good, but the strings were outstanding. Ingo Metzmacher gave us a Strauss tone poem (can’t recall which one), followed by songs from Das Knaber Wunderhorn (sp?), though the singer (Goerne) wasn’t sufficiently audible, the orchestral playing was wonderful (particularly in the two songs that use the same music as the middle movements of the second symphony). The second half was a good reading of Bruckner 6. Sadly the work suffers from the same problem as much of his writing, namely it gets a little repetitive at times, it is also one of his many works in which he neglected to save the best for last. That said, if you get the chance, go and see this lot.

Saturday and it was Beethoven. The mass in C as well as Christ on the Mount of Olives (beethoven’s only oratorio). I don’t know either work at all but Robertson and the RSNO played them wonderfully, and for once the festival chorus were pretty good (they often suffer from having far too few men). If anyone knows of good recordings of each of these, please let me know.

Week 3, which is dominated by a 5 day residence by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under Nott to follow. Also worth noting, I've only commented on the main evening concerts and not the morning concerts in the Queen's Hall (which feature mainly chamber music, but I may get round to them in due course.


regards,

Tam

In addition to the main evening concerts, the festival also has the morning Queen’s Hall series (which are going out at around lunch time on radio 3 at the moment. These are chamber music and have been a little mixed. They started off with Llyr Williams on Monday the 15th. He’s apparently a very highly regarded pianist, though lord only knows why. He started off with a terrible schubert d960 sonata, the pauses extended far, far too long. His use of the echo pedal (sorry, don’t know the technical term) was so excessive that all the notes were muddy and garbled. This coupled with the disconcerting way he kept turning round the look at the audience was annoying. His Chopin preludes were a little better but I shall not be making an effort to see him again.

Wednesday and we had some viola sonatas. Sadly the pianist Crawford-Philips was not very good (far too intrusive during the Brahms). The Britten and Prokofiev were better (mainly because it’s impossible to play intrusively with those. The Prokofiev (scenes from Romeo and Juliet was the highlight).

Thursday gave us the wonderful Belcea quartet with a very long programme. A Haydn trio, the Beethoven op 70 and the schubert 898. They confirmed my opinion that they really are an outstanding group, and the play with such a wonderful excitement.

Friday and Kozena followed her appearance in Clemenza with some lieder (accompanied Edinburgh stalwart Martineau – also far too intrusive!). The outstanding songs here were by Britten lullabies (op 41) and Shostakovich satires (op 109). Indeed they were so good I picked up the cd there and then.

Into week two. Monday saw lieder from Maltman and Martineau a mix of Schubert, Schumann, Mahler and Strauss. It was good, though I don’t really know the works well enough to review it properly.

Tuesday gave us the first of the Janacek string quartet’s concerts playing Dvorak. The op 105 sting quartet didn’t really do anything for me. However, in the second half was a really wonderful performance of the op 81 string quintet which melded together really well.

Wednesday and Martineau accompanies Brachmann in Schubert and Mahler. The Mahler (Wunderhorn) is particularly fine.

Thursday was the second of the Janacek’s two concerts. It was less good. The op34 string quartet was on a par with their tuesday performance. Sadly the second half (and string quintet, op 97) was not nearly as wonderful as tuesday’s piano quintet. I would also liked to have some Janacek from them. Indeed, I’d like to see a little more adventure in the programming in general (how about some Bartok and Shostakovich too).

Friday and the Michelangelo Quartet gave competent reading of Mozart’s k387, Haydn’s op 77 no. 2 and the Schubert string quartet. While there was nothing wrong with it, it didn’t blow me away either. Indeed, that has been the hallmark of much of the Queen’s hall series this year: competent but not outstanding.


regards,

Tam

Wow thanks Tam for those reviews. Looks like I'd like to visit for the next festival. I've heard about the off beat theater works, but the classical is quite an amalgam of interesting performers. Looks like it's either a 250.2 amp or a vacation there next year. Hmmmmm really hard decision!

Thanks for the link to John Adams I was completely unaware of his Dr. Atomic opera premiered this season in San Francisco. I'll have to think long and hard about a trip up there. Another financial setback. I envy you seeing Klinghoffer as I have it on disk and think it's brilliant. I hear from other knowledgable people it promotes terrorism and I think not, they've never heard it, it shows humans in conflict and at a small personal scale. Lots of operas are about the brutality of conflict.

We have a smaller contemporary music festival in a small hilltown called Ojai (oh hi-chumash Chumash Indian word meaning birds nest) outside Los Angeles in early June for 3 days or so, that Stravinsky conducted at and a string of other greats, that is now being watered down because they are finally in the black with more moderate selections. They seem to get more complaints when it's Boulez and Messian, so you're not alone in the conflict with conservative music crowd. They want Debussey under the trees with birds chirping, which has happened, and is really charming, after a hot set of edgy music that is. My first year about 12 years ago John Adams conducted and he was brilliant with the LA Phil. Saloneen has conducted the Phil too, 2 times, with wonderful northern European music and a few of his friends. One concert he'd just finished a progessive piece and the slow movement had just started and two cats in the neighborhood got into it with hissing and growling. It was histerical. They'd missed their cue by a minute or two, they'd have been perfect with all the percussion and strange goings on. He ended the series Sunday afternoon with a Revueltas piece that brought the house down. It's on his CD which I immediately bought. Can't find the CD but I think it was called Sensamilla, or is that the stuff that you smoke along with intense, wonderufl music? ;-)

Boulez is famous for putting speakers in the trees, or instramentalists in the audience, for an other type experience. They did a Messian "From the Canyons to the Stars" uninterupted. Difficult to sit thru but worth it, several orgasmic climaxes in this wild electric percussive sound stage. The last two years we're getting more moderate music. BLAH!!! I want something new like you. Expand my horizons! Thank gawd we have Salonen and the LA Phil all year at the new Disney Hall. And a contemporary series called the Green Umbrella with living composers to visit and premier their works. An experience that's worth the effort I guarantee. Well, thankfully the new season is only a month away.

Good to see your reportings and ideas.

glenn

from la la land

or the city of lost angels as I call it.

I went to the Bruckner 6 with the Gustav Mahler Youth orch. I thought it was one of the best concerts I've been to - well the 2nd half anyway, as Goerne didn't really fill the hall with his voice for the songs. I was at a perfomance of Schwanengesang by him and Alfred Brendel a few years ago in same hall, he had no problems then, suspect it may be down to the Usher Hall's accoustics as then I was in stalls, this time at corner of grand circle, great view and good orchestral sound.

Which was well served by the Bruckner performance which I greatly enjoyed, having no problems with any perceived repetitiveness about his music. This orchestra are simply superb, and totally into the music too.

I also went to Jonathan Nott and the Bamberg Symphony on Friday night... same problem with the mahler Kindertotenlieder, though Alice Coot's singing was lovely. What really struck me for the first time was the incredible orchestration for these songs which the performance really brought over. I'd never heard them so well in a recording. The beginning of the concert, Ligeti's Poeme Symphonique with its 100 metronomes was a bit of a joke, but the gradual run down of the devices one by one generated a lot of tension which creeated a very strong atmosphere.

The 2nd half was good - I was gobsmacked by Ligeti's Lontano but then the atmosphere it generated was totally ruined by people bursting into wildly ostentatious applause before it had stopped sounding through the hall. F@WITS. People who do this ruin concerts!

Death and Transfiguration didn't really do it for me... its a favourite piece of mine, but somehow this performance sounded a bit shallow and seemed rushed. I reckon 5 nights on the trot for this orchestra - performing massive works - all of Tristan, Mahler 5, Bruckner 9 the next evening - was just too much and they needed a break.

i was at the bamberg last saturday the 3rd

that was some brucker 9th

stunnibg second movement

we also had schubert 1 and 8

mozart clarinet concherto and some new piece i wasnt thrilled by it

but the bruckner ,they played their sox off

mike

please excuse the spelling its late and i am drunk or as we say in edinburgh guttered lol

Review of the 3rd week to follow (my computer recently went and died on me!).

Quickly though, I enjoyed the Kindertotenlieder (though they really need to sort out having the house lights stay up when there's text). Also, I'm not clearly whether it was deliberate not to light the singer's face, I suspect not.

As to the Bamberg and Nott, I went to 4 of their 5 concerts and by the end of the week I think I'd nailed his problem: he doesn't give the 'big picture'. Sure, he gets some nice sounds now and then, but over all.... The closing concert (aside from being far, far too long) was terrible to sit through. I'm a little ashamed to admit that the Schubert 8 was the first time I've ever felt moved to boo after a performance, but it was truly terrible. Clearly Nott hadn't read the tempo makings as both the Allegro and the Andante were played at a snails pace (and, indeed, the Andante seemed the faster of the two!). The Schubert 1 was interesting, not least because he'd decided to try and go for some 'performance' technique, sadly the orchestra wasn't up to it. Why they decided to do that on the schubert, yet not the mozart is a little puzzling. He clearly thinks he knows schubert (he's recorded enough of it) but my advice would be to stick very well clear. It wasn't all bad, though I think the bolero should never, under any circumstances, be played. However, I think it's a good lesson that 5 concerts by the same band in the same week is certainly too much.

That said, Brendel, in the 3rd week, has lost none of his skill, and was absolutely stunning.

Over all it's been a good year, though I wonder whether McMaster is holding back a little for his final throw of the dice next year.


Wolf, as far as klinghoffer goes, there is, in the UK at least, a DVD around, though I haven't seen it, so can't speak to it's quality. I was shocked when I read in the programme how many companies had pulled out of the premier when they discovered the subject matter.

As I mentioned above, the it's the current directors last year next time, so that might be good time to come. I've been the last 3 years now, and I'm not sure I could miss it!

I do like a good bit of Messaein (sp?), a few years back Thomas Trotter played one of the organ works (very good it was too) and my brother speaks highly of the St Francis they did recently.


regards,

Tam