Ola, amigos!

My wife, Marsha and I just got back from 2 weeks in Barcelona where I had the good fortune to conduct 7 concerts with a fine orchestra with a very long name: L'Orquestra Simfonica de Barcelona i National de Catalunya!

I first made music with the orchestra in 1995 when its home was the venerable and exceedingly beautiful Palau de la Musica Catalana in the old Barri Gotic or Gothic Quarter. Last season I went back on a few days notice to replace the fine French conductor, Michelle Plasson in a difficult program which included a piece by Henri Dutilleux which I had 1 day to learn. The orchestra had changed personnel quite alot since '95 and played in its new home, the "Auditori" which is a Lincoln Center-type complex that is really ugly on the outside and gorgeous on the inside! 

These past two weeks were fabulous. The musicians were fully engaged, interested in making the best music possible and we had really good communication–me to the players and the players to me, back and forth. Much of the music was new to them (and to me too): Poulenc's ballet suite, Les Biches, followed by the world premier of the catalan composer, Salvador Brotons's Symphony #5, and a suite of 8 highlights from the ballet Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky. The orchestra's current season includes many works that were either premiered by or were a favorite of Diaghilev's famous Ballet Russes, the storied company in Paris that brought so much great music into existence back in the early 20th century–pieces like Le Sacre de Printemps, Daphnis et Chloe, the Miraculous Mandarin, etc. Both the Poulenc and Tchaikovsky works on my program fell into this category.

 

Salvador Brotons is a very busy composer and conductor, so much so that he was only able to come to my 3rd performance as he was in Israel prior to it and heading to China right after it. I was disappointed that I couldn't have had interaction with him during the rehearsals. But he was very happy with the performance he heard and I was glad to have had a chance to meet him.

I was very impressed with the piece and how well written it was, both in the way he developed his ideas and in his skillful orchestration.Although an original conception, there were influences present like Shostakovich, Mahler, Elgar, Bernstein, Bartok and even Holst. The orchestra members seemed to like the challenge of taking on the responsibility of delivering this new "baby."

 

Conducting the Swan Lake was a pure joy. Man, Tchaikovsky sure knew how to write ballet music! For me, the finale is some of the most dramatic and moving music he ever wrote. When the Swan and her Prince ascend to heaven it is pure magic, pure genius. After a long, passionate and ultimately false climax there is a sudden change where everyone drops out except the harp and strings. They play a soft, moderately quick, steady rhythm that then builds back up in power to the entrance of the French horns playing a strong note (B natural) as a kind of signal  to the rest of the orchestra. The full ensemble comes in with a series of B chords, blazing majestically and nobly with the timpani pounding out now the previous string rhythm all the way to the end. I practically leave my body myself when conducting this moment! There is no question that I am always struck by the fact that something "other-worldly" is happening each time we hit this point and "get it right!"

 

Barcelona is a wonderful city, full of life and Marsha and I had a great time there. Right now the orchestra is having to take a big cut in its budget which comes entirely from governmental sources. My colleague and friend, Francois Bou, the orchestra's manager is confident however that they will get through this rough patch and be able to restore what is taken away as the national economic picture improves. So let's all send our positive well wishes in their direction. These fine people deserve great support.

Adios, amigos.

Paul

I've been guest conducting annually in San Jose, California for a decade now. The orchestra, Symphony Silicon Valley is terrific and we've forged quite a beautiful bond. 

The program for my concerts there last week began with Wagner's Siegfried Idyll which he wrote for his wife, Cosima Liszt in tribute to her devotion and for bearing him his son, Siegfried. The original work was written for single string players plus assorted winds performed with the instrumentalists arrayed on a staircase leading up to her bedroom with Wagner himself conducting. The term "romantic music" was not coined for nothing!

It has become customary in large concert halls to play it with full string sections. One needs to pace it a bit differently when performing with these large forces. I generally took it slower and focused on the beauty of the harmony and the spaciousness of the string sonority. It had been a while since I last performed it andI  found quite a bit of the later Mahler in it–in particular the sense of stillness and utter calm. The principal rhythmic motif of a short duration followed by a longer one reminds me of the one Mahler used at the beginning of his 9th Symphony (and for that matter, Beethoven and Brahms also to begin THEIR last symphonies!).

But this hommage to birth and creativity was followed by LIszt's Totentanz or Dance of Death, a series of variations on the Dies Irae chant for piano and orchestra played brilliantly by Adam Golka. It was quite a shock to go from the tranquility of the end of the Wagner into the brutal opening of the Liszt. But as the piece unfolded the variations afforded a variety of viewpoints on the subject of death, positive and negative, making a striking foil for the Idyll.

Then after intermission we campaigned through a major engagement with Life in Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances, his last piece for orchestra and arguably his greatest. I told the musicians at the end of the dress rehearsal to "be bigger than the piece." The work is so intense and demanding that it is easy for the executants to feel cowed a bit by its challenges. So to combat this I encouraged everyone to get the concept of being bigger than the piece they were re-creating and it worked like a charm. At the performances everyone was extroverted and heroic. The reviewer said that we gave a "killer performance," which was also a pun since Rachmaninov also made liberal use of the "day of wrath" tune towards the end. But LIFE WAS VICTORIOUS!

It was once again a wonderful week out there.

Yours,

Paul

I just got back from conducting Bach's Christmas Oratorio in Osaka and Handel's Messiah in Tokyo. These were benefit performances for the Japan International Volunteer Center, a wonderful organization based in Tokyo that provides relief, medical and agricultural assistance to countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. JVC has been putting on these Tokyo and Osaka concerts for many years under a host of conductors and this was my turn at it. The dedicated In-Charge is Inez Baskerville whose home is in Madison, Wisconsin. Inez lived part-time in Japan for roughly 40 years. She is, as you can imagine, fluent in the language and made sure that our stay was an enjoyable one. The orchestra was the Telemann Chamber Orchestra, a full-time ensemble based in Osaka that is equally adept at playing on Baroque or or modern instruments. Besides being extremely competent, musical and a joy to work with, they had been doing these two works for years and knew them inside and out. It was such a pleasure to conduct musicians who could duplicate my intentions instantly. Every tempo I indicated was picked up immediately and precisely. Everything I asked for was understood and executed perfectly on the first try. So my hat is off to them and their leader, Takeharu Nobuhara, a maestro and Baroque specialist considered the "Harnoncourt" of Japan! The four vocal soloists, Elissa Johnston, Adriana Manfredi, Pablo Cora and Kenneth Kellog all did a great job handling such a volume of arias and recitatives. In addition to the two big oratorios they also had several song recitals to give at our hotels–the Swiss-otel Nankai Osaka and the Hyatt Regency Tokyo. The Quodlibet Choir, a refined ensemble with a long tradition sang the Bach beautifully. That work profited by its performance space, the Izumi Hall which is an intimate, 900-seat room made primarily of warm-toned wood and with a full, resonant yet clear acoustic that was perfectly suited for the oratorio. The larger JVC choir of 180 voices for the Messiah did splendidly and the enthusiasm of this volunteer chorus matched the high spirits of this great work to a tee. The Bach choir has a tradition of always finishing every rehearsal with singing a lovely arrangement of "May the Lord bless you and keep you." I was asked to lead them through it after each of my Bach sessions too and I found that to be extremely touching. They even asked me to conduct it at the conclusion of the post concert party after having sung all day! The Handel choir did a similar thing by grabbing my arm and having me conduct them through the Hallelujah Chorus at the end of their post-concert party! I found Japan to be an impressive country. Although I have conducted in Korea many times virtually all of its professional orchestras, this was my first trip to Japan. The Japanese are trained to be good team players from an early age. This was abundantly clear from the discipline and positive attitude I encountered working with several of its ensembles. Tokyo is an enormous metropolis with beautifully designed skyscrapers everywhere. And they are so CLEAN! It's like the buildings are washed on the outside! The cleanliness of the overall environment is superior to any place I have ever visited. It certainly puts our American streets to shame. I felt completely safe there and never received a hostile look from passersby. The food is terrific and I love the system of restaurants putting plastic renderings of their dishes with the prices listed outside for all to see. You can easily determine if a restaurant has something that looks appealing and at a price that meets your budget. There were so many endearing things that occurred. Here's one: You are taking a hotel bus to the airport. You give your bags to a porter who places them in the bus's luggage compartment. Meanwhile you are waiting in your seat to depart. When the porter is finished his work, he looks up at the guests in the bus and gives a deep bow! Such formality! It makes his small job seem very important and deserving of respect. Indeed, that is a characteristic I observed in equal measure in Korea–the respect given to WORK of any kind. Everyone does something, produces something, no matter how small and each has his place in society and gets his measure of respect. You can walk for miles in the busy streets of Tokyo and Seoul and not see anyone begging. They are all working!!! The man who sells fruit from his corner cart has his portion of dignity. Hey, the taxi drivers wear suits and white gloves in Tokyo. Pretty cool. I recently heard that the NY government is trying to legislate a dress code for cabbies in the big apple! Well, I could go on and on–seeing the majestic, snow capped Mt. Fuji from the bullet train en route from Osaka to Tokyo was a nice bonus. But I'll wrap this entry up with a big BRAVO to the Japanese people for your industry, sweetness and aesthetic sensibility. Arigato gozaimas (thank you very much!) Sayonara, Paul