Word: mahler
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Boulez's view of Lulu is close to Stravinsky's. "As Mahler did for the symphony, Berg simultaneously amplified and destroyed the traditional outline," Boulez says. "Today the relationship between music and theater requires different conditions, for which Berg set the precedent...
...practiced listener cannot take in all these subtleties. But anyone can feel them - and feel is the word. Faithful as he was to the atonal vision of his mentor Schoenberg, Berg never left behind the yearning romanticism of Mahler and Wagner. Lulu retains a spontaneous, passionate life of its own. In projecting that passionate life musically, if not always dramatically, the Paris production presented a modern masterpiece on its rightful scale...
...that in the same issue as your delightfully acerbic Essay on "neologisms, coinages and other abuses" of the English language, men like Ibsen and Nietzsche were "astrodomed," Frank Wedekind "psychographed" his subject. Von Karajan makes Mahler "more immense" (less immense? a bit more immense?). Midnight Express is "hyped-up" (hyped-down? hyped-over...
...Mahler: Symphony No. 6 (Deutsche Grammophon, 2 LPs). Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic make Mahler even more immense than usual...
Overall, Alice is a bit long, too loud here and there, and a touch gimmicky: the stage bulges with strange percussive instruments used for special effects. The large orchestra, which includes brasses fit for Mahler or Richard Strauss, sometimes sounds like an elephant loose at a Victorian tea party. The trombones, trumpets and horns often drown out Hendricks, even though her voice is amplified. Still, Del Tredici has a winning ear. The eerie whoosh of a theremin, a primitive electronic instrument, signals Alice's alarming growth. Tempos slow down and shoot forward, keys slip in and out of place...