It could be troublesome to discover a extra radically divisive nice composer than Arnold Schönberg, born in Vienna in 1874 and died in Los Angeles in 1951. It could be equally troublesome to discover a extra radically inclusive composer, who remade European Music in his personal picture after which got here right here and he did the identical for Hollywood. Or a extra staunchly progressive – one would possibly even say obsessively progressive – composer who honored the previous and on the identical time paved the best way for a blinding future.
We nonetheless do not know find out how to promote Schoenberg. There is the horrifying modernist Schoenberg – inventor of the twelve-tone system, which replaces conventional concord with the democratic notion that every one notes are the identical – which is alleged to alienate audiences. But there may be additionally Schönberg who has continued because the nineteenth century in his lush early scores corresponding to the huge post-Wagnerian and post-Brahmsian “Gurrelieder.”
The nice occasion that concluded the celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Schönberg’s beginning this 12 months was Zubin Mehta conducting the grandiose “Gurrelieder” over the weekend with an enormous Los Angeles Philharmonic (stuffed with 4 crimson harps), the Los Angeles Master Chorale and highly effective voices. soloists.
“Gurrelieder” is the primary signal of the true Schönberg, whose music, regardless of how thorny or esoteric, at all times embraced the large image connecting the previous to the long run. Dedicated to the contrapuntal wonders of Bach, the classicism of Mozart and the amazement of Beethoven, Schönberg started his profession by mending the nice division of his early years, that of Wagner as a futurist and Brahms as guardian of custom.
In Brahms, Schönberg discovered a progressive harmonic thought that was logically heading in direction of atonality. Once, acknowledged by a stranger who requested him if he was the composer Arnold Schönberg, he replied: “Someone should be.” Schönberg took from Wagner the eagerness for infinite thematic improvement, from one factor to a different and one other on the best way to ecstasy.
In no opera does Schönberg embrace the spirits of Brahms and Wagner extra radiantly than in a “Gurrelieder”. Over the course of two luxurious hours, this quasi-oratorio is one large wonderful mess, and no conductor loves it greater than Mehta. At 88, Mehta is the dean of Schönberg conductors. When he turned music director of Los Angeles in 1962, on the age of 26, he informed the press that he felt it was extra vital in Los Angeles to conduct all of Schoenberg’s uncared for orchestral works earlier than performing all of Beethoven’s symphonies.
By the tip of the Sixties he was dedicated to his protection of Schönberg. He performed the primary efficiency of “Gurrelieder” on the LA Phil in 1968 on the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, across the identical time he was making sound-spectacular recordings of the primary and final Schönberg, catnip for audiophiles that also impress at present, with the Royce Orchestra. UCLA Hall. It can be the place Schoenberg taught college students who would go on to turn out to be composers of Hollywood movies, experimental movies, or each. David Raksin (composer of “Laura”) and John Cage mentioned they worshiped Schoenberg like a god.
Mehta had final performed “Gurrelieder” with the LA Phil in 1977, his penultimate season as music director. In 1991 he ended his 13-year tenure as music director of the New York Philharmonic with “Gurrelieder” and recorded it. Two a long time later, Mehta recorded “Gurrelieder” once more, this time with the opposite orchestra of which he served as music director, the Israel Philharmonic.
Meanwhile, “Gurrelieder” proved to be a favourite of three of Mehta’s successors on the LA Phil. André Previn was imagined to direct it in 1991 however fell unwell and was changed by Gerard Schwarz. Esa-Pekka Salonen directed a surprising “Gurrelieder” at Disney Hall in 2005. Gustavo Dudamel hoped to direct his first “Gurrelieder” in 2020; which was canceled as a consequence of COVID.
Mehta’s “Gurrelieder” has naturally turn out to be much less flamboyant and extra considerate with age. He linked it to Brahms by conducting the Brahms Violin Concerto (with soloist Leonidas Kavakos) and the Second Symphony the week earlier than. He deployed the nice forces of the “Gurrelieder” sitting on the rostrum.
The LA Phil performs Schönberg’s gigantic “Gurrelieder” on the Walt Disney Concert Hall
(Carlin Stiehl/For the Times)
While not as expansive as he as soon as was, Mehta hasn’t misplaced the essence of his LA Phil sound. There it was, large and daring, from the primary daring notes of the Brahms concerto to the searing, earth-shattering grandeur of the daybreak finale of “Gurrelieder.”
It’s a loopy work, begun in 1900 in an try to surpass Wagner, however not accomplished for 11 years, throughout which Schoenberg had moved in direction of atonality and modernism. A king, Waldemar, in an sad marriage, has an affair with a mistress, “Tove”. She dies. He can now not face life with out her. He dies and within the afterlife is pressured to hunt all day. It will get weirder and extra surreal with a narrator for the ending.
As a last-minute alternative for tenor Brandon Jovanovich, who contracted a kind of viruses roaming Los Angeles, John Matthew Myers proved a powerful fast examine as a rugged Waldemar. Christine Goerke as Tove and Violeta Urmana because the prescient Woodland Dove, whereas not at all times constant, introduced Wagnerian robustness to the opposite two main roles. There was extra character in Gabriel Manro’s farmer and particularly Gerhard Siegel’s madman. Dietrich Henschel was a extra melodic storyteller than most.
But the glory goes to the orchestra and the Master Chorale of Los Angeles, who appear to have given Mehta every part he requested for and maybe extra. Mehta finally let “Gurrelieder” converse for itself out loud.
This is a technique of approaching the Schönberg case. There are others. Schoenberg looms over Los Angeles greater than we regularly notice. Four days earlier than “Gurrelieder”, Piano Spheres, based 30 years in the past by pianist and Schönberg assistant Leonard Stein, opened a tribute program in reminiscence of pianist Susan Svrcek and composer Frederick Lesemann with Webern’s eight-hand association for 4 pianists on two pianos of the opening of “Gurrelieder”. It shone as seductively as an orchestra of 4 harps.
In February, Jacaranda’s new music collection, which concluded after 20 years of indispensable concert events, went out with a Schenbergian bang, linking the composer to Hollywood, Mahler, Coltrane and Boulez. But maybe essentially the most intriguing connection between Schoenberg and Hollywood would be the West Coast premiere of Tod Machover’s play “Schoenberg in Hollywood,” which UCLA will stage in a brand new manufacturing on the Nimoy in May — and, in fact, rehearse on the Schoenberg of ‘UCLA. Room.
