Greg Stepanich

Good things on the classical bookshelf

In my sometime capacity as a book reviewer for The Post, I get a good many new books crossing my desk, far more than I can ever get to. There are rather a lot of classically oriented ones hanging around just now, some of them not yet on sale but in galleys. Here's a brief look at what I'll be stacking on my table, and that you might be, too:

The Life and Death of Classical Music, by Norman Lebrecht. The official release date for this Anchor paperback is April 10, and despite the title, it's really about the rise and fall of the classical recording industry. Lebrecht, a British critic, is well-known for his pungent, sometimes outrageous opinions, but he writes with energy and a strong point of view, and it's hard to resist reading him.

I greatly enjoyed The Maestro Myth, his look at the profession of conducting, even when I didn't agree with it, and this new book looks just as contentious. Among the things he’s included is a list of the 100 greatest recordings and the 20 worst. I couldn't resist reading his filleting of the bad recordings, including his attack on the Benjamin Britten-Peter Pears Winterreise, in which he says Pears "teetered at the edge of wrong notes like a tightrope walker on Temazepam.” Yep, I'll read this.

The Savior, by Eugene Drucker. A debut novel by the longtime violinist of the Emerson String Quartet, due out in July from Simon & Schuster. The novel is set in World War II Germany, and the lead character is a violinist who's ordered to play for Jewish prisoners in a concentration camp, as part of an experiment by an SS commandant who wants to raise the expectation of hope for the doomed inmates. A grim premise, and it's billed as a study of culpability for crimes and an exploration of the exceptional power of great music. I'll definitely read this one, too.

Practicing: A Musician’s Return to Music, by Glenn Kurtz. This is the story of a man who had a promising solo career as a guitarist as a younger person, but gave it up. After years of not playing at all, he went back and began to practice again. But he found practicing meant something completely different for him this time around. This is one of my favorite topics, and I can’t wait to get started on this one. It’s due out in June from Knopf (here's an excerpt from his Web site).

The Violin Maker, by John Marchese. Published this week by HarperCollins, this is the story of a New York luthier named Sam Zygmuntowicz who makes violins in Brooklyn. Marchese tells what happens when Zygmuntowicz is called on to make a violin for none other than Eugene Drucker (q.v.) There have been several interesting instrument-focused books in the past couple years, including Piano, by James Barron, and Clapton’s Guitar, by Allen St. John. I like workshop books in general, and in the right writing hands, it could be a compelling read.

Classical Destinations: Photos by Wendy McDougall, foreword by Simon Callow. From Amadeus Press, this is a handsome coffee-table book derived from a TV series called Classical Destinations, a 13-parter that has been broadcast overseas. The Web site says Hal Leonard Publishing will bring it to the States in August. What producer Peter Beveridge and writer Matt Wills have done is visit the hometowns and important places of the great composers, and it really does add some depth to the lives we’ve read about so much. There are many lovely scenes to look at; I’m enjoying particularly the photos depicting the composing sheds of Mahler and Grieg, and Sibelius’ villa.

J.S. Bach: Life and Work, by Martin Geck; J.S. Bach: A Life in Music, by Peter Williams. Geck, a German musicologist, published his book in Germany several years ago; it was released last December in an English translation by John Hargraves for Harcourt. I’ve read about half of it, and it’s quite good; a thorough section exploring Bach’s life is followed by analyses of the music, and that’s what I’m just getting into now.

Williams’ book takes a look at Bach’s life by exploring the encyclopedia-like Obituary prepared by his son Carl Philipp Emanuel and published four years after Bach’s death in 1750. Williams, who taught at Edinburgh and Duke, has written books about Bach’s organ music and the Goldberg Variations, and no doubt has written a well-informed look at this pre-eminent composer. I’ll be reading this after finishing Geck; the book is out this week from Cambridge (here's a double review of both from Paul Griffiths).

Anyone read any good classical music books lately? Add a comment below.

Crabtree motets a winning mix of words, styles

Driving around Saturday morning on the way to the coffee shop to catch up with e-mails and gather my notes together from weeks of concert-going, I heard a young composer on From the Top talk about his wish that the world of classical music would appreciate the world of pop, and vice versa.

I instantly thought of Paul Crabtree, a British-born composer resident in the United States whose set of three vocal motets, Religion, Sex and Politics, received a searing performance last month from Seraphic Fire, the Coral Gables-based vocal ensemble. But more about that in a minute.

This question of the melding of the worlds of classical and popular music is, more than any other question, indicative of the trend in art music today, and not just in composition. It’s getting rarer to hear classical concerts these days in which music that touches on the commercial music heritage of the past century or so isn’t part of the program.

I think the thirst for melody is the primary reason that composers have turned to the commercial writers for some inspiration; you can’t deny the power of a good tune to affect audiences, and that’s not likely ever to change. And performers include music by composers such as Astor Piazzolla on their programs because it’s nearly pop anyway, and they want to reach their audiences with a guaranteed crowd pleaser.

Crabtree, born in 1960, comes at this from both perspectives. He was rigorously trained at two fine European schools and played keys for a garage band before decamping to the States, where found a cultural atmosphere in Northern California where his artistic desire to mix the two worlds had more support (you can read his biography on his Web site).

What’s extra-unusual about him is his willingness to mix disparate literary inspirations as well for his texts (such as lines from The Simpsons). Although Crabtree’s music ultimately was more classical than pop, these three motets presented a composer of impressive power who responds well to his sources and who can write utterly compelling music that relates beautifully to our time.

In all three of the motets, Crabtree offered a mixture of old-fashioned contrapuntal writing with big, jazz-inflected chords; each of the motets made much of repeated words, and the overall effect was of great, impassioned strength, even at its most quiet.

This is intense music, but without the free atonality that says “intensity” simply by showing up. It is tonal music, and it is music that freely avails itself of hundreds of years of music history without ever sounding gimmicky, and that is no mean accomplishment.

The first of these pieces, Mandorla mea, married an ancient Latin text (Assumpta est Maria) with Surrender, a poem by the American playwright Amelie Rives (1863-1945). A big cluster chord at the opening gave way at the words “I am thine own” to a counterpoint section that looked back to the 17th and 18th centuries; it all sounded like a natural expression of the words.

The second motet, When David Heard, was to my mind the best of the three. Here, the composer has wed the famous cry of King David on hearing of the death of his son Absalom (2 Samuel 18:33), in the Renaissance-era text used by composers such as Thomas Weelkes —

When David heard that Absalom was slain he went up to his chamber over the gate, and wept. And thus he said: O my son Absalom, my son, my son. Would God I had died for thee!

— along with a quote from the disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law, speaking in David France’s best-selling book (Our Fathers) about the priest pedophile scandal that brought Law down. Key to Crabtree’s method here was the repetition of the phrase “and wept,” over and over again, like a person sobbing who can’t get his breath. He also made effective use of the same melody, altered harmonically each time, on the phrase “up to his chamber over the gate.”

It was moving, and beautiful, and marvelously sung.

The third motet, Burn Down the Mission, named after an early Elton John song, was set to a Teilhard de Chardin text, in French and Latin, featuring a lucid solo by Mellissa Hughes and repetitions of the word “Seigneur,” (“Lord”) murmuring like the prayer it is. The music crested to a huge buildup before dying down again, and grippingly evoked the hysterical saintly fervor of Teilhard: “…burn me, purify me, set me on fire, sublimate me, till I become utterly what you would have me be, through the utter annihilation of my ego.”

I wish my notes from the concert had been more extensive — this is a hazard of trying to listen and write at the same time — but hearing these pieces made me eager to hear more of Paul Crabtree’s work.

He may be the only composer I can think of right now who has managed to mix the vast library of styles that are in our musical heritage and still retain his own voice. That bodes well for his relevance as a creator, and for his listeners, most of whom will have all those kinds of music in their ears as well.

A clean, well-lighted sonata

The German composer Paul Hindemith made a point in his career of writing short, accessible works for musicians to play for everyday use (Gebrauchmusik) and cranked out dozens of pieces in line with this idea, including numerous sonatas for a solo instrument and piano.

Last weekend, I heard a relatively recent sonata for violin and piano composed by Stuart Glazer, who teaches at Florida Atlantic University. I enjoyed the piece, and it seemed to fit right in with Hindemith’s idea, though of course the musical language was quite different.

Glazer’s sonata, played here by violinist Rebecca Lautar and pianist Edward Turgeon, both FAU faculty members, is a piece of clean contours and straightforward communication.

The four-note motif, first played by the piano, that begins the first movement also unifies it, and Glazer keeps the quiet but nervous energy it generates going throughout.

Both instruments traded athletic melodic lines back and forth throughout the movement, and the return of the opening material at the end made it easy for listeners to orient themselves.

The slow second movement, a memorial to Glazer’s father, was heartfelt and direct. The central melodic phrase in the violin, in which a six-note phrase unfolded from tension into release, was quite powerful, and one only wished for the writing here to open itself up some more, and delve deep into that idea.

The spirited finale was well-crafted and full of an attractive bustle that provided effective contrast to the rest of the piece. Overall, the Glazer sonata was reminiscent of a composer such as Vincent Persichetti, and was well in the American neoclassical tradition.

Violinist Lautar said she had played the piece a couple years earlier and was bringing it out again for her recital Sunday afternoon at the Harid, and I’m glad she did. Glazer has written a good, forthright piece that offers players and listeners modest challenges; it’s an unpretentious, useful work that deserves a wider audience.

'House' explores music-brain connection

On a recent episode of House, the singer-songwriter Dave Matthews offered an impressive performance as a piano-playing musical savant who had gotten that way because of a brain injury suffered as a child of 10.

In one scene, Dr. House brings in a piano to play a short thing he's written as a teenager, and a piece he'd never finished. Not only does the savant (who was in the hospital after suffering a dystonia episode while playing Beethoven's Waldstein Sonata) learn the piece immediately, he also adds a poignant coda that impresses and frustrates House. He says something to the effect of "that nitwit" was able to finish the piece in no time, and he's barely functional (here's a recap on a House fan blog).

At the end of the episode (spoiler alert!) the savant, named Patrick, has a hemispherectomy, which allows him to function normally, but takes away his musical ability. It was an interesting hour of television, and I enjoyed it.

But the episode raises important questions about what the real source of music is. As I've noted before, there's something sad about musical creativity being reduced to a byproduct of cerebral irritation; it should instead emanate from some secret place in the soul.

It does, and yet it doesn't. We bring the soul to bear on the neuronal suggestion, and that combination leads to art. I guess it reminds me that so much of who we are as human beings is locked in our brains. It's the latticework of memory in our cerebral cortex that stitches our lives together, and as we see in Alzheimer's patients, for instance, when that memory has disappeared, so in the most fundamental way has the person.

From there, it's a transfer of that person's identity to the memories of the people he or she knew, and in that way the person lives again. And the same goes for music: The person who created those notes or that performance has long passed from the scene, but what they created lives on in the memory of those who are still here.

It reminds me that art is really evanescent, held as it is by Chance, whose arms are so slender. It makes those miraculous musical moments all the more powerful because they could so easily have not existed.

It also makes me think of the sad case of Maurice Ravel, who came down with Pick's disease or Alzheimer's (I've read different opinions) in the 1930s and was unable at the end of his life to write down the music in his head. He could hear it, he wanted desperately to get it out, but he had lost the ability to transfer the sounds in his head to paper. I can't imagine a worse fate for a great composer.

Whenever I think about the House episode, I'll also be thinking about how fragile this exercise is, and how grateful I am to be able to enjoy it, not least because of the way the neurons in my head work.

Next month, the University of Miami will present master classes given by Michael Thaut, a Colorado State University professor who will give three talks about music and neuroscience. (Details here; click on Stamps Family Distinguished Visitors Series.) One of the classes will be called "Rhythm, Music and the Brain: From Aesthetics and Performance to Medicine.” That sounds like it will touch on some of the questions raised in a TV melodrama, and it might be well worth checking out.

Copernicus concert ambitious, successful

Last month, the organizers of Project Copernicus in Miami sent me a recording of their Jan. 21 concert, and it’s taken me a long time to get around to listening to it, what with the press of other business.

Finally, though, I’ve found some time, and I like what I hear.

This Miami-based chamber ensemble, which I’ve written about earlier this year, is trying to reach audiences by pursuing new music and collaborations with creators from other artistic disciplines. The Jan. 21 concert, titled Hausmusik, was recorded at Arts at St. Johns in Miami Beach and featured a song by Copernicus’ resident composer, Stephen Danyew, the Arnold Schoenberg arrangement of Debussy’s Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune, and the Fourth Symphony of Gustav Mahler in Erwin Stein’s 1921 reduction.

The Danyew work, Soft Wind, is a setting for soprano, tenor and chamber ensemble of a poem the composer wrote to commemorate the passing in October 2003 of his grandfather. Danyew, a 23-year-old recent graduate of the University of Miami, isn’t afraid to be lyrical, and Soft Wind is primarily a long, supple melodic line shared by the two voices amid a general mood of peace and quiet.

The music is of a piece with the melody-based strain of American composition exemplified by writers such as Samuel Barber and Ned Rorem, rich with feeling, the harmonies conservative and comforting. Soprano Monica Yunus and tenor Brandon McReynolds sounded fine, and declined to oversing at the climax just before the end. Danyew’s song didn’t have an especially distinctive profile, but it worked well for what it was intended to be: A heartfelt tribute to a beloved family member.

The Debussy that opened the concert demonstrated that Copernicus is made up of some first-rate musicians. Schoenberg’s arrangement is beautifully done, attendant to Debussy’s precise colors and a lovely work of art in itself. Conductor Chung Park led this work at a good tempo that kept the languor of the original without dragging, and the recording also indicates he paid strict attention to dynamics as well.

His interpretation had a satisfying shape, above all; it had a sense of narrative and arrival particularly important in this music, which falls apart under less scrupulous hands. There was standout playing as well from flutist Ebonee Thomas, oboist Rick Basehore — who has one of the fattest sounds I’ve heard in a long time — and pianist Zoe Zeniodi.

The Mahler Fourth that occupied the second half is perhaps the most accessible and traditional of this composer’s symphonies. But although it doesn’t ask for eight French horns like the Third or organs and choruses like the Eighth, it still has specific orchestral effects that are lost in a 12-person chamber version, skillful though Stein’s is.

And yet, one of the pleasures of Mahler’s writing is the contrapuntal clarity, even when he’s going all-out in a huge orchestral peroration, so there are good reasons to appreciate this reduction on its own merits. Copernicus had some tuning and ensemble difficulties in the first two movements, which tend to sound like slightly weird salon orchestra pieces.

Part of this is the size of the ensemble, which is too small to make enough of an effect in the maximal moments, and part of it is the music itself, which to be most effective has to sound as though entire sections of the orchestra are in a state of near-collapse.

That’s especially true of the second movement, which here lacked the sense of nervousness and hysteria that differentiates it from the relative calm of the other three movements. It could have used a bit more push, a little more bite, to make it work.

But the closing two movements were more effective. The serene slow movement, the emotional core of the work, showed off the Copernicus strings to good effect, and the music unfolded with a moving sense of bliss and repose. Soprano Yunus returned for a well-sung finale, in particular the final verse’s paean to the aural delights of heaven (Kein’ Musik ist ja nicht auf Erden).

This was an ambitious concert in every sense of the word, and while there were moments where things didn’t go so well, Project Copernicus has every right to be pleased with this effort. According to its Website, the group is looking for a West Palm Beach venue for its May concerts, and that's good news. This is a venture that's well worth supporting.

Exploring new Irish classical music

A short entry to mark St. Patrick’s Day, which comes with the realization that I don’t know much about contemporary Irish composition.

But in another instance of the endless amount of information available on the Internet, I wandered over to the site of Ireland’s Contemporary Music Centre, and there’s a nice list of Irish classical composers of the 20th and 21st centuries.

I’ve spent a little time this afternoon looking for the Web sites of several of these writers, and if you’re interested in this sort of thing, you might want to as well.

There’s some very pleasant music by Anne-Marie O’Farrell, a harpist (click here to listen), and challenging pieces by Fergus Johnston, Donnacha Dennehy and Ailis Ni Riain (pictured above), composers whom I selected entirely at random from the center’s list.

I know a little bit of older Irish music — John Field, inventor of the nocturne; Michael Balfe, whose opera The Bohemian Girl had decades of performances; and E.J. Moeran, who wrote some fine orchestral music I remember hearing a while back.

But I don’t know any Brian Boydell, for instance, and I’m sure there are other worthwhile Irish composers to get to know better. I’ll invite any one in the blogosphere to help me out: Who’s writing good classical music in Ireland these days? Leave your comment below.

Amazon sees a market for classical

Here's a lovely piece of news from the world of commerce.

Amazon on Monday launched a brand-new site devoted just to classical recordings. They're calling it the Classical Music Blowout Store, a name I really like.

The press release quotes Amazon's senior music editor, Thomas May:

"The demand from our customers for classical music continues to outpace other music categories. But the disappearance of prominent brick and mortar music stores and the fact that most music retailers are scaling back their selection of classical music means that more and more classical music lovers are relying on Amazon to continue offering the deep selection and low prices that they are looking for. With the launch of this store, we are simply making it easier for customers to find and purchase the classical music they love."

Here's the new Website.

I'm thinking seriously of dropping $100 for the 155-CD box set of Bach's complete works; the reviews on the site are rather good, and it appears the Mass in B minor, for one, is done by Harry Christophers and The Sixteen, which is a high-quality group by any measure. It could prove invaluable for reference purposes to have this set, and I think I just might buy it.

What makes me especially happy is the idea that the world's largest online retailer has decided to devote a site to classical records only. Amazon says it was the second-fastest growing category for them in 2006.

I'm biased, of course, but I think this is a smart move on Amazon's part, and it should pay off nicely. The kinds of people who will visit this site are repeat customers with a vested interest in this art form, and they'll prove to be well worth the investment.

The question is: How long will it be before Amazon and the other Web sites (Naxos, for example) are the only places to get classical? There's something to be said for bricks and mortar, after all.

But for the moment, I'm celebrating.

Some notes on the Delray Quartet

A few months ago, I wrote a blog entry about the Delray String Quartet and the work I thought they needed to do to become a stronger ensemble.

I dropped in on their Feb. 25 concert, and I was happy to hear that things had gotten better. The primary objection I had before was that the overall ensemble sound was rough and strident, and that the players needed more time to work together to get a more even sound.

They’re not quite there yet; there were plenty of moments during the concert in which the music was simply overplayed, driven home with a fearsome intensity not really justified by the music.

But the Delray has an unusual performance problem in that they play in the Colony Hotel, which has no air conditioning in the music room and windows that open onto Atlantic Avenue and a side street. So in a sense they are always playing against the traffic and a large amount of ambient noise, which could explain some of the fortissimos.

The program included the Lark Quartet of Haydn (No. 53 in D major) and the sublime C major String Quintet (D. 956) of Franz Schubert, with guest cellist Greg Sauer. Also on the program was one movement of the String Quartet No. 2 (Bergonzi) by Thomas Sleeper, well-known locally for his work at the University of Miami.

The original program indicated that the whole quartet would be played, and I was sorry to see that only one movement was offered, interesting though it was. This second movement, titled Sacre, was scored for three of the four quartet instruments; violist Richard Fleischman played a Tibetan prayer bowl instead (such as the one pictured above0, striking it to bring out a gentle, mournful sound.

Cellist Ian Maksin sounded quite good in the extended solo recitative that forms the most arresting part of this piece. One wishes to have heard the rest of the quartet to hear how it fit in; you can go to his Website for that. (One side note: Sleeper was in the audience for the performance, and it was his birthday; at the end of the concert, the entire room of more than 100 people sang Happy Birthday to him, accompanied by the quartet.)

The opening Haydn quartet showed off some of the better things — at times, all four players (the others are first violinist Mei Mei Luo and second violinist Laszlo Pap) came together quite well, with a warm, unified sound.

At other times, such as the beginning of the third movement, the proceedings were much rougher, too much so for what’s supposed to be a light, graceful minuet.
The finale, on the other hand, was taken at a thrillingly fast speed that was witty and joyous at once; it brought roars from the audience.

The last work on the program was the Schubert Quintet, celebrated for its unconventional use of two cellos and its unending lyricism. This is a very difficult work to bring off well partly because it demands so much attention from audience and players.

Much of the playing here was quite fine, particularly from the two celli in the first movement, and the finale had a growing intensity that was well-managed and ultimately exciting. But the third movement had a roughness that extended through the trio section, and the second movement, too, with its beautiful sense of stopped time, didn't relax enough until the second time through the opening material.

The audience loved the performance, and surely the fact that the Delray tackled this piece with integrity and aplomb is something of a milestone for this young group. And so before the quartet moves on to its next challenge, here's an unasked-for list of suggestions for a better ensemble:

1) First violinist Luo is a strong, talented player, but she’s going to have to dial back the intensity if the quartet is going to have a good blended sound. Luo tends to push too hard much of the time, and it distracts from the music.

2) The Delray needs to have another venue to play in now and again for concerts so we can hear them in a setting that might allow them to hear each other better. Perhaps Old School Square on Saturday afternoons, say, or some other such house with a more forgiving acoustic.

3) Even though they haven’t gelled as a group just yet, they’re getting there, and I think a recording project is in order. I’d suggest completely fresh repertoire such as the Sleeper quartet; something you can’t get anywhere else, in order to advance the cause of new music but also lay claim to a definitive performance.

4) Get someone to improve the information on the printed programs so that it’s in line with regular practice. Many a howler has appeared on the lists, and it’s time that the proofreading was done by a musician who’s familiar with the information a program should supply: i.e., full composer’s names, birth/death dates, correct opus numbers, correct tempo designations. Even that little bit of cleanup will take this deserving foursome to what the corporate world likes to call “the next level.”

The quartet plays again at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Colony Hotel. On the program is the last string quartet of Mozart (No. 23 in F, K. 590), an arrangement of the Sibelius salon trifle Valse triste, and the Third Quartet of Tchaikovsky (E-flat minor, Op. 30).

Music and the free market

The British violinist Simon Hewitt Jones left a comment on one of my blog entries the other day, so I tracked back to his site and I found it interesting.

In the About section of the blog, Hewitt Jones cites the conductor Benjamin Zander as a way to make a salient point about the world in which we find ourselves:

In our new global society, no institution has the wide acceptance to create values and direction for the majority of people, and that’s what free markets are about. What’s more, free markets are ever more rapidly replacing governments (and particularly religious institutions) as regulators of authority…. however, markets don’t have values. They don’t ‘converse in a human tongue’.
Zander says: “The arts can break new ground here, bringing human consciousness to bear on these flows of product and capital, energizing our interpersonal connections, and opening new doors for invention and practice.” And he’s right.
If you spend a few minutes on this blog, you’ll realize that everything I do is rooted in these beliefs. In terms of live performance, this means that programming and environment and context are more important than ever before. It means that we have to think of music not just in terms of which pieces would be nice to hear in which concert. It means finding a whole new vocabulary with (which) to express our work.

Getting the free markets to speak more artistically, as Hewitt Jones wants, is an interesting challenge, but I think in large part it is beginning to happen.

The secret lies in the power of music itself, which in our time is more fundamental a form of communication than it ever has been in Westernized society. We can almost never escape it (and if you’re musical, it’s rarely pollution, no matter how dreckish it is), and whereas in the past previous eras of music were quickly consigned to the saddest remainder bins in the record stores, now each kind of music that can be categorized has a living connection — via the Internet — to fellow fans and therefore, to continued support.

This constant renewal of every kind of music speaks eloquently about how this art reaches people, no matter that the culture that once celebrated one form or another of it now casts it aside. And so I think that if you present whatever music you have with honesty and a true desire for human connection, the possibilities for that new vocabulary are manifold.

Just the other day I went to a concert that I thought brilliantly brought together old and new music in a way that was illuminating, entertaining and uplifting all at the same time, and it did so through music, but also through text, and through a tiny bit of theater. If musicians aren’t afraid to cross those boundaries in search of the audience, they will find that audience ready and waiting for them.

And in frightening times like these, we need them more than ever.

Thoughts on the Boca festival

Some random thoughts on the Festival of the Arts Boca:

a) The setup outside the Boca Raton Museum of Art is nice enough. It's grassy and the seats are all sturdy folding chairs, which gives the event the right kind of summer festival feel. There weren't all that many seats filled Sunday night for the concert by Yefim Bronfman (above) and the Russian National Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski, which made the seat selection even more casual.

b) The concession stands are OK, with the typical kind of stiff pricing all these events seem to require. The double-chocolate pound cake at $1.50 was passable because the slice was kind of big, but the $3 for bottled water was steep. No coffee, either, but there was wine and beer. The bibulously inclined no doubt found it relaxing to sit through Also Sprach Zarathustra with a mild buzz from a white zinfandel.

c) Restroom access was a little confusing; the major restrooms are on the side of the Count de Hoernle Amphitheater, which I found easily enough, but some signs closer to the seats would have helped. There seemed to be plenty of capacity in the men's room for the line to move along reasonably well.

d) There are two big sound problems. The first is the row of large generators sitting off stage left, which grind and rumble throughout the performance and apparently power the purple spots on the sides and probably the mixer board at the back. Necessary, but too loud and too distracting.

Second, the music Sunday night turned into a mish-mash of competing musical interests because of a sonic delay, probably caused by the nature of the performance shell itself. That was quite annoying as well, especially since the Rachmaninov Third Concerto has a couple question-answer moments between piano and orchestra that depend on clarity to work.

e) Parking was a pain, too. I did make one round of the streets at Mizner Park to see whether there were any spots on the sides, but no luck. I had to try several parking garages before finding some space. It would be good to have some better signs, or an attendant of some kind, to show patrons of the festival the way.

f) The good thing about being in Mizner Park is coming out afterward and walking past bars, restaurants and coffee shops still open after 10 p.m. and going strong. It helped add a feel of city life that was most attractive after a concert by major musicians. It's always spooky to come out of a concert some late night and have to walk through a deserted city to a parking lot, or fight with hundreds of other people for a cab, or struggle through dark streets to a subway stop, as I've done.

That seems to put a damper on things, as though you've overstayed your welcome, or you're participating in events no one cares about. The Mizner Park experience is a pleasant change.

Bottom line is that the festival has some kinks that need to be worked out, but I still predict it will be a success when all is said and done. I'm looking forward to seeing Arturo Sandoval doing the Hummel Trumpet Concerto this coming weekend.

Anyone else around here take in some of the shows and have some thoughts? I'll entertain them below.

So far, opera at the movies is a hit

A brief entry to note that the Metropolitan Opera simulcasts in movie theaters have proved to be quite successful, as this article in Variety shows (gotta love that cheesy Varietyspeak house style, too).

As I mentioned in my piece about seeing Tan Dun’s The Last Emperor, it was a great idea to open up the movie houses to this possibility. For $18, I can see and hear the whole opera in way I couldn’t for much more money in a live performance, and I can sit in a comfy seat and eat all kinds of unhealthy junk food, too.

On yesterday’s Simon Boccanegra broadcast, general manager Peter Gelb (pictured above) said the number of movie presentations will be increased to eight next year, not counting possible encore outings. (Here’s a link to their new season, which includes two Prokofiev operas — The Gambler, War and Peace — and Britten’s Peter Grimes, along with The First Emperor.)

This fits right in with idea of being casual for performances, as well. I can really concentrate on the music, the performances, and the whole production if I don’t have to worry too much about other theatergoing considerations. I’m planning to take in Il Trittico on April 28 (I’ve yet to see stagings of Il Tabarro or Suor Angelica, though I like both those operas), and seeing it in a movie house will be a good way to get to know the work.

That won’t stop me from going to the opera on other occasions. I’m looking forward to Florida Grand Opera’s Anna Karenina that month, too. Perhaps that company, and Palm Beach Opera, too, should think about broadcasts of their own to spread the word about the two organizations we have in our midst down here. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the smaller Treasure Coast Opera Society of Fort Pierce, which also might benefit.

Plus, across the state, the Sarasota Opera, is well-known for exploring worthy but little-known works; this season it was Stanislaw Moniuszko’s Halka, a staple in Poland but rarely done over here.

How about some movie broadcasts of these productions? Maybe there’s a way to get some of them to a silver screen somewhere here so audiences can get a better handle on the number of arts organizations we have here. There’s a lot of effort out there that’s getting seen by too few people, and if technology can change that, I’m all for it.

Boca festival mix looks solid

The Festival of the Arts Boca, which got under way last night at Mizner Park with the fine Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, has to be seen as a welcome addition to the local classical music scene — and that's without my having yet been to an event.

There is a good deal of classical activity hereabouts, not only from adventurous performers who form their own ensembles and mount their own programs, but from the biggest names in the business, who can be found at the Kravis, the Broward Center and the new Carnival Center in Miami.

Still, since many of the audiences during the winter season have plenty of the same people who attend these events back up North during other times of the year, the festival should be able to draw some big crowds for people such as Hvorotovsky, pianists Helene Grimaud and Yefim Bronfman, violinist Itzhak Perlman and cellist Nina Kotova, all of whom are on the bill for the 11-day festival.

The Russian National Orchestra is the house band for much of the festival — though the Boca Raton Philharmonic Symphonia joins in as well — and there's a good deal of Russian music on the programs. In addition to the Borodin, Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky selections Hvorotovsky was scheduled to sing last night, there are the Rachmaninov Third Piano Concerto (with Bronfman), the Prokofiev Fifth Symphony, Stravinsky's Scherzo fantastique, and the Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet overture and Rococo Variations (with Kotova).

I'm definitely going to be at the Bronfman performance tomorrow night, and in addition to the review for the paper, I'll try to provide some blog input as well that night. I'm trying to find time for some of the other events, in particular the Prokofiev performance next Saturday (that's Sergei at the head of this entry).

We've heard many a Shostakovich symphony in recent years, which is wonderful, but I enjoy the seven Prokofiev symphonies as well — yes, all seven of them. The Seventh is not a great work, but it has a beautiful opening theme that some enterprising composer should look at for a theme-and-variations set.

The Fifth is by far his best-known, and it's a fine work that deserves regular performances; I'm happy that someone around here finally is going to offer it.

Overall, the musical part of the festival is sort of a mini-Kravis season: It has major stars of the concert world playing well-known, popular crowd-pleasers. Perlman plays the Bruch G minor; Grimaud plays the First Concerto of Brahms; Sir James Galway does double duty as conductor and flutist (triple if you count raconteur) in a program featuring the Mendelssohn Italian Symphony, concertos by Mercadante and Cimarosa, Britten's Simple Symphony, and, of all things, the Light Cavalry Overture of Franz von Suppe, which vanished decades ago from most orchestra programs, though concert bands still play it.

There's more to the festival than classical music — today's lecture by playwright Edward Albee and Monday's by writer Anna Quindlen, film screenings, the Boca Bacchanal wine fest and two jazz evenings — but for the classical concert selections, the organizers of this event appear to have chosen wisely. With the exception of the Prokofiev, which might be tough going for some, there's nothing here that's going to ruffle any feathers or provide anything but a satisfying night of canonical masterpieces.

And that means the festival should be quite successful, and easily lead to a second offering in 2008. Perhaps some chamber music events could be added during the days, which would enrich things significantly. But I predict a strong success for the festival, and I'm hoping that future events offer an even wider range of music.

Up and coming: The Boca festival is getting under way during one of the busiest times of the season for classical fans. This weekend also sees the Empire Brass Quintet at St. Paul's in Delray on Sunday and the Chameleon ensemble Sunday in an all-Chopin chamber afternoon, among other events. On Monday, pianist and tech blogger Hugh Sung accompanies violinist Stephanie Jeong at Kravis' Rinker Playhouse, and that same night at the Broward Center, the young German violinist Julia Fischer appears in recital in a program of sonatas by Bach, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Debussy.