About the Composer

I’m really not big on holidays, in general, but my last post is a little too snarky to leave up on Christmas. So, I’ll just say…

Have a great holiday, folks!

And leave it at that.

Since I’m not in New York, I have not seen the Met’s production of Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy, nor am I likely to. Judging from the reasons given by Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times for his disappointment in the new commissioned work, I’d say it looks like something I would admire, given the opportunity.

Let’s see…

The production is handsome and sure. Friday’s performance proved enjoyable. Picker’s score contains lush, singable, flowing music, easy on the ear. Gene Scheer’s libretto is, to a fault, literate and considerate of composer, singer and audience.

Yup, sounds like a bit of a letdown. OK, what else…

The d�cor is appealing, and the comfort level is very high. A veneer of sophistication is unmistakable, as is a certain design imagination.

Right. We don’t like competent stage design. And?

The opera does a strong job of setting the scene. Picker’s inexorable stream of lyric music acts like a society. It has a mind of its own and can’t be stopped. Picker is traditional in his production of arias, duets, trios and ensemble numbers that seamlessly connect to a thread of arioso.

And, we can’t have an opera composer with dramatic skills. No. At least we can hope he’s a crappy orchestrator.

Picker writes expertly for orchestra � his finest pieces are the orchestral scores he produced before turning to opera in 1996 � and James Conlon had the Met orchestra sounding as excellent as ever…

Darn. Nope. OK, now we’re getting to the heart of what Mark Swed’s beef is:

…But Picker has an annoying habit of sounding too much like other composers at times. In “Fox” he came uncomfortably close to “Peter and the Wolf.” Here, a theme reminiscent of the storm music from Benjamin Britten’s “Peter Grimes” leads off the second act and returns often.

And…

[Picker] pays lip service to social concerns and class differences, but ultimately his is an art of accommodation � to singers stuck in the past, to audiences wanting what they already know and to opera companies eyeing donors’ checkbooks.

First of all, it’s a bit cynical to automatically assume that a composer writes accessible music in order to be appealing to donors. I know, I know, Picker has written more difficult stuff in the past. But he’s by no means the only composer who’s made that switch, and yeah, maybe he’ll switch back, and let’s not read anything into that either.

As for the need to keep audiences and funding in mind, this is just the way it is, and it’s not Tobias Picker’s fault. Here’s a radical idea: Because of the expense of mounting these large-scale productions, maybe grand opera on the scale of the Met is not the place where new ground is going to be broken right now. I, too, wish that donors at that level would be more adventuresome, but it’s not Tobias Picker’s fault that they’re not.

It doesn’t matter if the music is derivative or too accessible, or whatever. If the drama works, and the music successfully supports the drama, and the orchestration is good, and the set is good, and there isn’t a dry seat in the house at the end, then the opera works. Full stop.

OK. This is way off-topic, but I haven’t posted for a while, and this is pretty interesting.

Watching America is web site that digests articles from the world press that take a point of view, one way or the other, specifically on American issues. Articles are taken directly from the foreign-language source and translated by volunteers. So, in other words, you can be assured that this material is not sanitized and repackaged for English-speaking readers.

There’s some pretty nail-biting stuff here: An interview with an al-Qaeda leader, interviews with Iraq insurgents, and some very harsh comments from journalists in Europe.

I lived in Hungary during the first Gulf War, and I always found it fascinating how different the coverage was there from what I was getting from CNN, Voice of America and the International Herald Tribute. More recently, I’ve been casually following the Hungarian press out of the same fascination. So guess what: Watching America has accepted me as an occasional translator.

Last week, I translated a few articles from various Hungarian news sources. Surely the most controversial one so far is this one, from the portal site Index.hu. It’s not in the best taste, but it’s sure interesting.

(Don’t worry; I’m still a composer. More about that during the week.)

I’m back home for good now, and have finally had time to put my thoughts together around my latest premiere, which took place on November 18th in Budapest.

About the Event
The American Composers’ Podium is the brainchild of conductor Alberto Santana, stemming from the odd reality that American music is largely unknown in Hungary. This is something I observed there in the early 90’s, and I was surprised to learn that it is still the case. When I lived there the only American music people seemed to know about was John Cage and Steve Reich. So, as an American composer, I naturally welcome this idea.

Left to Right: Myself, composer Sara Doncaster, conductor Alberto Santana, soprano Nanci Weneck, horn soloist Imre Magyari, composer Malcolm Hawkins.
Photo credit: Robin Carduner

This year’s Podium included world premieres of three newly commissioned works (mine included), plus the Hungarian premiere (!) of Barber’s Symphony No. 2. In addition to my Letter to Hungary, which opened the concert, we had the priviledge of hearing Sara Doncaster’s very beautiful Song of Nature and Three Maidens, an impressive horn concerto by Malcolm Hawkins. Alberto closed the concert with Barber’s Adagio for Strings. We three composers had never met before. I was glad to meet both of them and thoroughly enjoyed both of their company during the days leading up to the concert.

Sara’s work was for soprano and string orchestra, and featured a young American soprano, Nanci Weneck, who’s lived in Budapest for five years now. Remember that name. Trust me. Although we’d never met before, Nanci and I have in common the same Philadelphia mentor, Sean Deibler, who was responsible for both of us studying in Budapest, albeit during different eras.

Many thanks to the American Embassy in Budapest, who gave this event its full support. Not only did the embassy provide a lovely reception, but the ambassador himself was present and made a speech before the concert.

About the Venue
The building now used by the Italian Culture Institute in Budapest was the home of the Hungarian Parliament from 1867-1902. When I lived in Budapest, the Italian Institute either didn’t exist, or was not used as a concert venue, so I originally responded with a shrug to the news that this would be the venue. In the time since, however, it has become not only one of the main classical concert venues, but also a sought-after recording space. The acoustics in the concert hall are phenomenal. Except for a mural on the wall behind the stage (which I did not take the time to study), it’s a relatively plain room with an extremely high ceiling.

HCSO Rehearsal at the Italian Institute

How did my piece go?
As far as I can tell, Letter To Hungary was very warmly received. I mean, no one was going to come up to me and tell me the piece was terrible, so I only got positive feedback. Of course, a couple of things were working in its favor. For one thing, since it was specifically written as a concert opener, it’s a bit of a crowd pleaser, on top of which the basis on Hungarian folk music was sure to endear it to a Hungarian audience. Also, in my brief talk before the piece was performed, I opened with a bit of Hungarian, which is something Hungarians always appreciate. In fact, I’d gotten as far as “jó estét” (good evening) before they erupted into applause, to my delight and embarrassment.

Alberto Santana led a spirited and emotional performance. It was particularly gratifying to hear his reading of the slow opening, which had been particularly hard to listen to on my Sibelius playback. His approach to the scherzo at the end was suitably energetic — swashbuckling even, and the orchestra responded with vigor. So regardless of what the audience may have thought, I was a happy camper.

The orchestra was quite a bit smaller than what I was picturing while writing the piece, so there were some spots that didn’t quite work as desired. There are some places in the piece where the sections divide into as many as four parts. But these guys were pros, and they figured out how to make it work. So, while some of it wasn’t as robust as what I was picturing, the overall effect was just fine.

The only real sad news is that no recording was made of the concert. I’ll now be working on some minor revisions and seeking out future performances, so hopefully it will be recorded someday.