Word: tonalities
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...fostered by training in Paris in the 1870s, at the teaching atelier of Emile Carolus-Duran. Very much the maestro and dandy, Carolus-Duran focused his method on a near monomaniac attention to direct tonal painting, almost the opposite of color-based Impressionism. "Velazquez, Velazquez, Velazquez," he intoned, "ceaselessly study Velazquez." And from that study, Sargent got three of the major traits of his style. The first was a consummate skill in rendering objects and people bathed in space and low light. The second was its apparent straightforwardness--its ability to make a gesture count, to "knock in" the folds...
...warm, polished, slightly reticent work. The HRO's brass section, sometimes dicey, was wonderful here in rehearsal and Yannatos' tough love made its staccato playing even better. The slow turns of the oboe at the outset have an Italianate flavor (Walter's grandfather was named Antonio Pistone) and the tonal language is cosmopolitan: Piston, luckier than most Harvard seniors, won a Paine Traveling Fellowship after graduation. You'll want to listen in the third movement for exuberant music that Dr. Y wants to deliver in "band style...
Various and complex tunings were used to achieve different tonal effects, and the move from the Renaissance style to the Baroque was distinctly audible over the course of the concert. It is this that is most interesting in the lute music: its ceaseless movement from one chord to the next, from one style to another. It is music never satisfied with itself, never stationary: It is dynamic and as intellectually satisfying as it is aesthetically pleasing...
...sharp contrast to the almost mournful Kyrie, the Gloria began in an exuberant burst of energy from the entire chorus and orchestra. Celebrating the glory of God, Beethoven managed to represent this feeling of joyful gratitude through a wide variety of tonal colors and a quicker tempo. It was in the solo sections of the Gloria that the audience first got to really hear the warm, haunting voice of mezzo-soprano Rasmussen, a good match for Brewer's soprano...
...Michael Yeargan's sets are suitably sleazy, and Renee Fleming pours heart and soul into the role of Blanche DuBois. But Previn's well-bred score barely hints at the dark crosscurrents of obsession and desperation that made Tennessee Williams' play so naggingly memorable. This slow-moving Streetcar is tonal but tuneless, sometimes violent but never sexy. Even the bluesy bits are oddly polite--an unexpected letdown from a composer-conductor who plays first-rate jazz piano on the side. Let's face it, Williams' lush prose needs no music: it is its own opera...