Found: The Source of that Berlin "mini-explosion"!
Paavo Järvi Wins Over DSO Musicians (If Not Its Audience)
By Paul Moor
MusicalAmerica.com
February 8, 2005
BERLIN - When I went backstage at the Philharmonie to meet friends after Paavo Järvi's Feb. 5 appearance as guest conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, I happened upon a situation that seemed without precedent in all my decades of concert-going: A surprising number of the case-hardened musicians who compose this orchestra, thoroughly accustomed to playing under the batons of some of the finest conductors extant, stood waiting in an orderly German line to shake Järvi's hand, congratulate him, and thank him for the rare musical experience they had just had the good fortune to share.
At 43, Paavo Järvi -- son of Neeme, elder brother of Kristjan, also an up-and-comer -- has two distinguished orchestras of his own: the Cincinnati Symphony and Bremen's Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie. As guest conductor, he also has appearances behind him with the major orchestras of Europe and the U.S. He also works regularly with Claudio Abbado's Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the European Union Youth Orchestra, and Moscow's Russian-American Youth Orchestra. Those credentials abundantly confirm Paavo Järvi's status as no longer a comer, but as a conductor who has definitely arrived. With Berlin's DSO he had already made his debut appearance five years ago this past December.
Trained at The Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and the Philharmonic Institute in Los Angeles but born in Estonia, Paavo has acted as an enthusiastic propagandist for living Estonian composers (e.g., Arvo Pärt, for years now a Berliner by choice), and one such work, with debatable prudence, opened this concert: Zeitraum, by Erkki-Sven Tüür, who himself gave it that invented German title meaning "Time-Space." If that terminology evokes post-Einstein "new physics" and science fiction, Tüür may have hit upon le mot juste. After that things proceeded more conventionally, with the first Shostakovich Cello Concerto and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra.
Only four days previously, that admirable London newspaper "The Guardian" had published a thoughtful book review by Martin Kettle (of the Oxford University Press's "Roots of the Classical: the Popular Origins of Western Music," by the South African musicologist Peter van der Merwe) that repeatedly came to mind during the Tüür opener. I find this excerpt, from the lead passage of Kettle's review, appropriate enough to justify quoting:
"When did the music die? And why? It will be 30 years in August since the death of Dmitri Shostakovich.... [W]hat is the most recently composed piece of classical music to have achieved a genuinely established place in the repertoire? I mean a piece that you can count on hearing in most major cities most years, and a performance of which is likely to bring in a large general audience. Shostakovich's first cello concerto, written in 1959, perhaps? Even that is stretching a point. A more truthful answer might be Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs, composed 56 years ago in 1948...." (Read Kettle's complete article.)
Conventionally enough for the present day, "Time-Space" dispensed with two of all music's four fundamental components -- melody and harmony -- and not what we heard but only Järvi's implacable beat (approximately 60 to the minute, with no perceptible deviation) provided even a smidgin of rhythmic sense. Tone color, on the other hand, did abound. A high point of some sort came when the audience sat up short at what sounded exactly like a pistol shot. That recalled one of the pieces the young and still frisky Paul Hindemith simply called Kammermusik (Chamber Music), in which he ended one movement with a galvanizing pistol shot. Opening my thoughtfully closed eyes, I discovered that Tüür had in fact not copycatted Hindemith; one of the Philharmonie's lightbulbs had simply exploded (critically?), showering some of the hapless musicians with splinters - but not in the least fazing Järvi.
Tanja Tetzlaff, looking almost frail in crimson pants and a sleeveless black jumper, laced fearlessly into that technically demanding Shostakovich concerto, and got such an ovation for her energetic performance that after a few returns to the stage, she sat back down and favored us with a sensitively played movement from one of the Bach Suites. The Bartók afforded this fine orchestra's various instrumental choirs a rich opportunity to show off their prowess to the fullest, and at the end Järvi properly deflected the protracted ovation toward the orchestra, which had just played out its collective heart for him.
By Paul Moor
MusicalAmerica.com
February 8, 2005
BERLIN - When I went backstage at the Philharmonie to meet friends after Paavo Järvi's Feb. 5 appearance as guest conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, I happened upon a situation that seemed without precedent in all my decades of concert-going: A surprising number of the case-hardened musicians who compose this orchestra, thoroughly accustomed to playing under the batons of some of the finest conductors extant, stood waiting in an orderly German line to shake Järvi's hand, congratulate him, and thank him for the rare musical experience they had just had the good fortune to share.
At 43, Paavo Järvi -- son of Neeme, elder brother of Kristjan, also an up-and-comer -- has two distinguished orchestras of his own: the Cincinnati Symphony and Bremen's Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie. As guest conductor, he also has appearances behind him with the major orchestras of Europe and the U.S. He also works regularly with Claudio Abbado's Gustav Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the European Union Youth Orchestra, and Moscow's Russian-American Youth Orchestra. Those credentials abundantly confirm Paavo Järvi's status as no longer a comer, but as a conductor who has definitely arrived. With Berlin's DSO he had already made his debut appearance five years ago this past December.
Trained at The Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and the Philharmonic Institute in Los Angeles but born in Estonia, Paavo has acted as an enthusiastic propagandist for living Estonian composers (e.g., Arvo Pärt, for years now a Berliner by choice), and one such work, with debatable prudence, opened this concert: Zeitraum, by Erkki-Sven Tüür, who himself gave it that invented German title meaning "Time-Space." If that terminology evokes post-Einstein "new physics" and science fiction, Tüür may have hit upon le mot juste. After that things proceeded more conventionally, with the first Shostakovich Cello Concerto and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra.
Only four days previously, that admirable London newspaper "The Guardian" had published a thoughtful book review by Martin Kettle (of the Oxford University Press's "Roots of the Classical: the Popular Origins of Western Music," by the South African musicologist Peter van der Merwe) that repeatedly came to mind during the Tüür opener. I find this excerpt, from the lead passage of Kettle's review, appropriate enough to justify quoting:
"When did the music die? And why? It will be 30 years in August since the death of Dmitri Shostakovich.... [W]hat is the most recently composed piece of classical music to have achieved a genuinely established place in the repertoire? I mean a piece that you can count on hearing in most major cities most years, and a performance of which is likely to bring in a large general audience. Shostakovich's first cello concerto, written in 1959, perhaps? Even that is stretching a point. A more truthful answer might be Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs, composed 56 years ago in 1948...." (Read Kettle's complete article.)
Conventionally enough for the present day, "Time-Space" dispensed with two of all music's four fundamental components -- melody and harmony -- and not what we heard but only Järvi's implacable beat (approximately 60 to the minute, with no perceptible deviation) provided even a smidgin of rhythmic sense. Tone color, on the other hand, did abound. A high point of some sort came when the audience sat up short at what sounded exactly like a pistol shot. That recalled one of the pieces the young and still frisky Paul Hindemith simply called Kammermusik (Chamber Music), in which he ended one movement with a galvanizing pistol shot. Opening my thoughtfully closed eyes, I discovered that Tüür had in fact not copycatted Hindemith; one of the Philharmonie's lightbulbs had simply exploded (critically?), showering some of the hapless musicians with splinters - but not in the least fazing Järvi.
Tanja Tetzlaff, looking almost frail in crimson pants and a sleeveless black jumper, laced fearlessly into that technically demanding Shostakovich concerto, and got such an ovation for her energetic performance that after a few returns to the stage, she sat back down and favored us with a sensitively played movement from one of the Bach Suites. The Bartók afforded this fine orchestra's various instrumental choirs a rich opportunity to show off their prowess to the fullest, and at the end Järvi properly deflected the protracted ovation toward the orchestra, which had just played out its collective heart for him.
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