Detroit Symphony Blog: September 2009

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Change is in the Air ;-)

"Harsh booing at the gala opening night of the Metropolitan Opera - where strong negative reactions are rarely heard, at least in comparison with European opera houses - was still ringing in the ears of the opera world on Tuesday."

The New York Times Sept. 23, 2009

The Detroit Symphony has announced plans for a completely revamped season, starting with its concerts this week. The programs will not be changed, at least the ones advertised, but the manner in which the works are performed will be altered.

To begin, the orchestra will be seated with their backs to the audience. Music Director Leonard Slatkin said at a press conference yesterday, " feel that the listeners are distracted by seeing the faces of the musicians. By turning around, people will tire of looking at backsides and focus purely on the music."

But that is only the beginning of the new era. For the final work on the program, Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony, the conductor is not only going to reinstate the cuts sanctioned by the composer, but will add some additional ones as well. All in all the total performing time will be about 12 minutes.

"The piece is so long and repetitive. Once you have heard the main tunes, well, they are so memorable that they do not have to be played again."

Slatkin went on to say, "It is my hope to perform a Bruckner cycle using this philosophy. In that way, we can get through all of them in one concert, perhaps with time for the two that have no number as well."

Beethoven's 5th will get a trimming, but with a different rationale.

"Many years ago, I did a production of Tosca in Hamburg. The director told me that since everyone knows the opera, he wanted to eliminate many of the traditions that have bogged the work down. So there was no church in the first act. The heroine did not leap to her death at the end. Yes, we were roundly booed, but I started wondering whether the same rationale could be applied to symphonic music."

So for these performances of the overly familiar Beethoven score, the opening five bars will not be played, since everyone knows how they go. It will be straight into the 6th measure. In fact, every time the four-note motto comes in and is played loudly, the passage will either disappear or be performed softly.

Most of the soloists will be surprised to learn that the tuttis that usually herald the first entrance will go away. So no more three minute intro for either the Brahms 1st piano concerto or Violin Concerto.

Slatkin has a reason for this as well.

"We are not paying them to sit or stand around."

Other emendations include orchestration changes. The opening of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, played by the bassoon in a high register, will now be intoned on the tuba, two octaves lower than printed.

"Tubists at the beginning of the 20th Century were not as facile as today’s artists. Bassoonists have plenty of solos. Why not let someone else have a chance at it?"

There will also be a chamber version of Mahler's 8th Symphony. Sometimes referred to as the "Symphony of a Thousand," Slatkin hopes to get it down to 46.

"There are fine chamber versions of the 4th Symphony and Das Lied, so precedent is on our side."

Another of Slatkin's projects is to present the complete organ works of Cesar Franck, transcribed for accordion. These will be played at the orchestras pre-concert recitals.

Then there is the "Pictures Project," a round-the-clock set of performances including the 33 known orchestrations of the Mussorgsky classic. Long an advocate of alternate versions of the Ravel, Slatkin said "It is impractical to include one on each of our subscription concerts. So we will start on a Friday, and keep playing until we get through all of them. If we lose a member of the orchestra along the way, so be it."

Finally, in keeping with the new seating arrangement, the orchestra will perform in street clothes, but the audience is requested to come in formal attire.

"Let them learn how long it takes to put on white tie and tails."

Season tickets, subscription renewals can be taken care of directly with the DSO box office.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Meet the Musician: Dennis Nulty, Principal Tuba

Joining the DSO this season is Principal Tuba Dennis J. Nulty who received his appointment while completing his graduate studies at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

Born in upstate New York, Dennis began his musical studies in third grade on cello. In fifth grade he left the orchestra for the band, where he started on trumpet, at which he claims he was "terrible."

"I was relegated to the baritone/euphonium after only a couple of weeks with the trumpet," said Dennis. "I picked up the tuba in sixth grade only because I was on the football team and was the biggest kid in the band at that time, and there were no other tuba players!"

Dennis completed his undergraduate studies at the Eastman School of Music, earning a Performers Certificate, one of only a handful of tuba players to do so. He then joined the New World Symphony in Miami where he was a fellow for three years.

Dennis has performed extensively with the Boston Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Rochester Philharmonic and Syracuse Symphony. He also plays with a variety of ensembles such as brass quintets, marching bands, jazz groups and period instrument ensembles, including the New Sousa Band with which he toured Florida. He has performed frequently at historic Fenway Park, including at the opening ceremonies for game one of the 2007 World Series, and most recently has been recording a CD/DVD with trumpeter Chris Botti and the Boston Pops.

In addition to music, Dennis is most passionate about photography, reading and biking.

Labels: Meet the Musician, Noteworthy

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Samuel Barber: A Centennial Tribute

by Marilou Carlin

American music has always enjoyed a place of pride in the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's classical repertoire, and will again in the 2009-2010 season, the first to be fully programmed by Music Director Leonard Slatkin. But among the many American composers that the DSO has championed over the years, none is more important than Samuel Barber.

Barber figured prominently in the DSO's award-winning "American Series" recordings in the 1990s, appearing on four different releases. Importantly, his works have also been performed regularly on the DSO's classical series.

Meanwhile, Leonard Slatkin, one of the country's most ardent promoters of American composers, has also had a long affinity for Barber. He recorded a dozen Barber compositions with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and also conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a recording of Vanessa, the composer's most successful opera.

So it is entirely fitting that the DSO should join with many other American orchestras this year to celebrate Samuel Barber's centennial with a season-long tribute. These performances offer audiences a unique opportunity to enjoy and explore the contributions of one of our country's greatest composers.

"Perhaps no other American composer was as misunderstood as Samuel Barber," said Leonard Slatkin. "In many ways a throwback to the 19th century, his musical language seemed at odds with the time in which he lived. However, during the past decade, we now regard him as a true individualist with a distinctive voice and prodigious musical gifts."

Born on Mar. 9, 1910 in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Samuel Barber was one of the first students to study at the Curtis Institute of Music, which he was enrolled in at the age of 14 and where he studied composition, voice and piano. He went on to win the Prix de Rome as well as two Pulitzer Prizes, and many of his works have since become part of the core classical repertoire. Hailed for the rich lyricism and melodic beauty of his music, his compositions are most often characterized as deeply emotive and exquisitely crafted.

Still, Barber's enduring legacy was not a foregone conclusion during his life. At a time when American composers were more often being lauded for breaking away from European tradition, Barber unabashedly built upon that tradition, particularly the Romantic aesthetic. His music was sometimes labeled "anachronistic" and critics unfavorably compared him to some of his more groundbreaking contemporaries such as Aaron Copland, Roger Sessions, Virgil Thomson and Elliott Carter.

Despite the critics, Barber developed a following and was championed by many of the 20th century's most celebrated conductors and musicians. Some of his greatest successes came early, such as the Overture to the School for Scandal (1931) and the Adagio for Strings (1936), both of which will be performed in the first DSO Barber program of this season (Oct. 1-3) under Slatkin's direction.

The Adagio for Strings is perhaps Barber’s most well known work. It is an orchestral arrangement of the slow movement of his String Quartet No. 1. The renowned conductor Arturo Toscanini, who was acquainted with and impressed by Barber's work, requested a short piece to play on tour with the NBC Symphony, the resultbeing the Adagio. It had its premiere in 1938 with Toscanini conducting the NBC Symphony in a nationally broadcast radio concert heard by millions, bringing greater fame to the composer and instant popularity for the work.

Although Barber insisted that it was "just music," the achingly beautiful piece, infused with a sense of tragedy, resonates on a deep emotional level with nearly all who hear it. Featured on numerous soundtracks, it has added eloquent gravitas to such films as Platoon, The Elephant Man, El Norte and Lorenzo's Oil. It has also come to be performed regularly on solemn occasions, including the funerals of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prince Rainier of Monaco. In fact, Leonard Slatkin conducted the BBC Orchestra in the Adagio just four days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 in a live televised performance filmed in tribute to the victims and heroes of those tragedies.

Barber's Adagio had its premiere when he was just 26, and scholars have noted that the composer "found himself" as an artist at a very early age. But while this and other early pieces established his career, works that he wrote in middle age earned him the highest honors, namely the Pulitzer Prize. His first Pulitzer was awarded for the 1957 opera Vanessa, the libretto of which was written by Gian Carlo Menotti, Barber's lifelong personal and professional partner. His second Pulitzer came in 1962 for his Piano Concerto. Barber died all too young in 1981, at the age of 71.

According to those who knew him well, Samuel Barber was urbane, sophisticated, witty, melancholy and brilliant. He was also an uncompromising and meticulous artist who firmly and unequivocally established the validity of the American composer. According to the musical scholar Paul Wittke, "The taste and refinement of the America that gave us a Samuel Barber is rapidly disappearing – but it is there in his music if we but listen."

Labels: Noteworthy