One morning not long ago, New Yorkers awoke and tuned their radio dials as they had each morning to WNCN, the Concert Network. Rock music blared out at them. Without warning, one of New York's three classical music stations had disappeared.
This spring, news came that the Mostly Mozart Festival, an annual summer music series providing many memorable evenings, might be scrapped. Interested New Yorkers are staging an intense campaign to keep the festival alive.
Despite these ominous signs, however, classical music continues to thrive. The visitor to New York during The American's meetings in December will not have time enough to sample all the offerings.
The standard repertoire is much in evidence. At the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center, home of the New York City Opera and the New York City Ballet, it is the time of year when one takes the kids to the City Ballet's Nutcracker, eight performances per week of a very competent presentation.
Across the plaza at Avery Fisher Hall, Kurt Masur will lead the New York Philharmonic in a Mendelssohn program. This is part of the repertoire that Masur cultivated in his many years at the helm of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra before taking over the Philharmonic. Besides the Italian Symphony, a very common offering, music lovers will have an opportunity to hear A Midsummer Night's Dream, not the orchestral selections that are often played, but the complete Incidental Music for soloists, orchestra, and chorus. Later in the week, he hands the orchestra over to Roger Norrington, a very interesting conductor who will be joined by Andre Watts in a program including the Fourth Beethoven Concerto and other works.
Also at Avery Fisher is a program by the American Symphony under Leon Botstein. Botstein has been engaged in various projects over the last few years, usually with an historical pitch. He arranged a summer festival of the music of Dvorak, including lectures and demonstrations, that presented the music of those who influenced the Czech composer, music by his contemporaries, and the folk music, both European and American, that he incorporated into his works. In the same spirit, Botstein is re-creating a concert that took place in Berlin in 1894 with works by Rubinstein, Stenhammar, and D'Albert, as well as the more familiar Mozart, Schubert, Wagner, and Strauss.
For beautiful music in impressive surroundings, try the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It has a wonderful auditorium for chamber music, which features concerts by the Beaux Arts Trio, the Guarneri and Tokyo Quartets, and others throughout the year.
At this season you can hear Chanticleer, an a capella vocal ensemble, perform in front of the museum's Neapolitan Christmas tree in the Medieval Court. Or you can hear an instrumental ensemble featuring the gifted flutist Paula Robison perform baroque works in the Temple of Dendur. These are just two of a week of concerts in various locations within the museum.
Carnegie Hall is the oldest and for some the most revered concert hall in New York. During meeting time there are a number of worthwhile events. The Vienna Boys' Choir makes its annual visit in an event that is very pleasing to a large audience. There will also be an opportunity, now becoming more rare, of listening to the gorgeous singing of Kathleen Battle. Her offstage behavior of late has gotten her banned from several venues, making it difficult for the music lover to witness the incredible vocal instrument she possesses, but you can hear her at Carnegie in December.
This time of year, of course, is Messiah time, and there are many performances in churches and concert halls throughout the city. Among the best large-scale versions is the performance of the 175 voices of the Oratorio Society of New York, under the baton of Lyndon Woodside. This organization, which performed at the first concert ever given at Carnegie Hall, will give its one hundred twenty-third annual performance this year.
The Metropolitan Opera will be well into its season by meeting time. For lovers of the standard repertoire there will be more than one performance each of Verdi, Puccini, and Mozart, with Rigoletto, Madame Butterfly, and Don Giovanni representing those masters. One can expect competent performances and perhaps even special ones, but it is hard to predict weeks in advance what the status of this or that artist's voice will be.
For something more adventurous, there are two performances of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes. There is also one performance of a new Met production of an opera by the young Shostakovich which goes by two names, Katerina Ismailova or—the one the Met is using—Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. In the course of the opera, Katerina feeds rat poison to her father-in-law and kills her husband with the help of her lover. When the crime is discovered and the pair are sent off to Siberia, the lover becomes interested in another woman, whom Katerina grabs and takes with her as she jumps into the river. Despite any reservations one may have about the plot, the work was considered musically vibrant and enjoyed success following its Leningrad premiere in 1934. In 1936, in what probably was the first serious attack by the Communist Party on the music of Shostakovich and modernist art in general, an article appeared in Pravda calling Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk “a musical muddle.” For many years it was not performed in the Soviet Union, and such tight control was exercised over the score that producers in Europe who were interested in the work were unable to get their hands on the music. In 1963 the opera was revived in Moscow under its other name, and there have been sporadic performances in Europe and the United States ever since.
It is encouraging to note that at times when the performance of classical music is threatened by financial considerations and other forces, New York's musical institutions are making greater efforts to maintain performance standards for tried and true works, and are becoming more adventurous in presenting works not regularly heard.
Charles Tolk