Return to the February A&E Preview cover page.
Earlier previews:
December 2000
November 2000
October 2000
May 2000
April 2000
February 2000
December 1999
November 1999
October 1999
July 1999
June 1999
May 1999
S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N
Arts & Entertainment Preview | February 2001 | Sponsored by Chrysler
by Austin Baer
One for All and All for One
 |
Manfred Honeck
|
At any given moment, in towns and cities throughout the civilized world, amateur musicians are participating as key players in the grandest masterpieces of the literature: Bach's Passions, masses by Mozart, Berlioz, Brahms, or Verdi, symphonies of Beethoven and Mahler. Who are these pillars of our musical life? Why, choristers, of course! And yet, as we are all too apt to forget, a crack chorus (whether composed of Sunday drivers or lifers) is a virtuoso instrument in its own right, the individual singers as interdependent as the strings of a Steinway. Among the very greatest at large today is the Swedish Radio Choir—so stellar that the exacting Riccardo Muti once flew the ensemble to Italy for a festival performance of Mozart's Requiem, and quite a picture they made, all those blondes, among the mosaics of Ravenna. This month, on tour in North America with the comparably eminent Eric Ericson Chamber Choir and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, these remarkable artists put themselves to the test in two wildly contrasting programs. The first—offered in Toronto and Ann Arbor—is a mixed bill including discoveries by Strauss, Lidholm, and Schnittke (his Concerto for Mixed Chorus), as well as Ligeti's eerily disembodied contemporary classic Lux Aeterna. The second—at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and in South Bend, Indiana—features Verdi's heaven-storming Requiem, conducted by Manfred Honeck, whose stock is rising fast. Courtesy of Lincoln Center's "Great Performers" series, New Yorkers get to hear both bills. (February 9, 11; 212-721-6500.)
Before and After Psycho
Movie fans know Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975) as the composer of the scores for Citizen Kane and Psycho. On February 15, we have a chance to get to know him better, thanks to Jonathan Sheffer, the conductor and artistic director of the Eos Orchestra. Founded in New York in 1995 with the unpretentious objective of presenting "engaging musical programs to a diverse audience," Eos has swiftly made its name with surprising fare: a retrospective of the expatriate composer and litterateur Paul Bowles, brilliant evenings of rarely seen ten-minute operas, and more. This season's subscription series opens with a tribute to Herrmann featuring samples of Herrmann's pre-Hollywood orchestral music, experimental radio pieces he wrote as a sort of staff composer at CBS radio, the suite from Psycho, and excerpts from the most durable of Herrmann's operas, Wuthering Heights. "At CBS, Herrmann was called upon to compose and arrange in every conceivable style, to accompany dramas and variety shows," Sheffer says. "He became very skilled at the sort of spare, hypnotic atmospheres we associate with his music for Hitchcock's films." Removed from the celluloid context, movie music remains, for many, a suspect genre, a kind of wallpaper in sound. Sheffer would disagree. "Movie music is used to increase emotional depth of film, to depict or enhance seen or unseen character and plot points," he says. "Herrmann's music, unlike that of his 'Golden Age' contemporaries in Hollywood, created complex and subtle psychological moods: less Strauss, more Schoenberg and Debussy." For tickets, call 212-691-6415.
The New New Grove
"When, in 1969, my colleagues and I began to lay our plans, we thought of the work we were preparing as the sixth edition of the dictionary first prepared by Sir George Grove in the 1870s and 1880s. As time and work went on, however, it became clear that we were producing not a new edition but a new dictionary." Thus, in his preface to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the editor Stanley Sadie described the genesis of a veritable bible. But a generation later, the New Grove itself has required the sort of overhaul contemplated in 1969. Lo, Behemoth! From the first edition's 20 volumes, measuring 44 linear inches, running to 22,500 articles and 16 million words, the second has expanded to a whopping 29 volumes, 55 linear inches, over 29,000 articles, and 25 million words (list price: a princely $4,850). Dwell, if you like, on the extra space devoted to living composers and emerging research trends (Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt, feminism, postmodernism ...). But the big deal this time is the electronic version, integrating the full text of the print version with twenty-first-century search capacities, cross-references, and related links. Annual, monthly, weekly, and hourly rates are available, and even owners of the retro print version may want to check in from time to time. A permanent editorial and research team is in place for regular revisions and updates. "Not that we'll be rethinking Mozart on a quarterly basis," cautions Laura Macy, the dictionary's publishing director.
Austin Baer is a writer based in New York.
Photograph of Manfred Honeck: Lena Koller.
Copyright © 2001 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.