13 January Memorial Concert

On 13 January 1991, at the TV tower in Karoliniskes, Vilnius, Russian tanks under the orders of that nice Mr Gorbachev, mowed down 13 Lithuanian men and one woman who were in a group peacefully defending the TV transmission system located in the tower. These events, televised throughout the world, led, eventually, to the break-up of the Soviet Union.

On January 12th every year since then, a concert by the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra has taken place in St John's Church in the University commemorating this event. The key piece is 'Sutartines' (it means something like 'little folk harmonies') by Schnittke, a 3 minute piece which he wrote in solidarity and memory of the events. It's an awesome piece, starting with a viola solo of a simple little melody, which the viola soloist and his front desk colleague play non stop throughout the piece, as the other instruments join in in an increasing noise, roar and gun noises, before dying away again, leaving the little melody carrying on before it dies away. It's a magnificent depiction of tanks rolling over fragile flowers. There is one violist in Lithuania, Petras Radzevicius, who plays this little melody to perfection, with the right amount of feeling, expression and child-like gay abandon - under all the noise. Sadly, he did not play tonight.

Some prat sitting near me started to applaud when the band came on stage at the start of the concert; this is the one occasion - a memorial concert - where you would not do that, until later in the concert. He was not well supported; I thought the leader of the orchestra gave a little scowl.

'Sutartines' was followed by the usual Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra programming. A strange little concerto grosso by Vivaldi; very early (RV 129), and overwhelming the audience who should then have applauded and did not; two elegaic pieces by Grieg (incredibly slushy and not played slushily enough), and then the Siauliai choir 'Polifonija' came on. Actually, it's not a bad choir - good at their pianos and enunciation.

Vaclovas Augustinas' (he's still alive and young) a capella piece (not on the programme) was a fairly traditional choral setting of something; could have been a weaker baroque piece had it not been for a bit of triteness in the men's voices. Algirdas Martinaitis, a respected Lithuanian composer, in his 50s, (brother Jurgis [?] is a poet), had written an Agnus Dei for mezzo, choir and orchestra. It was kind of neo-romantic (he also writes much more modern stuff), with I think a few gun noises thrown in [but difficult to tell in a public church where people wander in even during concerts]). This lamb of god was certainly carrying the sins of the world, but at various stages it also seemed to throw them off and gambol around the countryside, kicking its little legs in the air. Nicely sung by Ieva Prudnikovaite (who's changed her haircut to a heavy fringe - before, with all her hair long, she always had rather a noble brow), the choir and played by the orchestra.

Mozart's Ave Verum; what can you say - there was a moment when they choir could have been more legato; otherwise it was ok. Finally Schubert's Mass in G Major (written in a week in 1815); quite a classical piece, and also short. Apparently after Schubert's Death the mass was nicked by another composer, who ended up in prison for embezzlement. Here you wonder why you pay for soloists; their parts are so short, it's hardly worth them sitting on the stage and getting all nervous - could not the better choir members have done it? Probably not - there's a difference between even the best choir member and the professional soloist. The 3 soloists did well; Asta Kriksciunaite and Ignas Misiura are old hands at this game; I had not seen Rafailis Karpis (tenor) before; he had about 3 words ....

It was an ok concert; it served its purpose - you go more for the emotional moment than for the music. You'd never expect musical brilliance at this kind of concert. For that the orchestra needs a number of well-aimed kicks up their collective backsides.

Last review this year....

....promise!

I could have had my hands full - the Filharmonija had 7 concerts in various locations, the state symphony orchestra, the opera house, all theatres are busy and sold out, the restaurants have concerts (my friend Pavelas Giunteris is playing at a restaurant where the tickets cost about 90 Euros, though I hope you'd get fed, too - at the opera house you can pay more than that and just get a measly glass of sparkling wine...). You should know that some of the orchestras involved have also toured rural parts of Lithuania with the same programme; in addition the Filharmonija has had concerts every day since 26th December, so all Lithuanian musicians will be knackered.

Being a cheapskate, I always wait till January before I go to see repeat of the New Year Eve's premiere at the opera house. Then it's cheaper. The State symphony orchestra's concert this year particularly was not my thing, and so I ended up as usual at the St John's church with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra. They do two sittings on the same evening; I got the first when they were still fresh.

The programme is always standard and fairly popular classical or baroque stuff. This year the delightful Robertas Servenikas conducted a Bach orchestral suite (not the one with the Badinerie), a number of arias and duets, and as always the Haydn farewell symphony. I wonder if we always need the same thing, but then what would the Vienna New Year's concert be without the Radetzky march?

It all went quite well; in the Bach I noticed that the orchestra is moving towards a more historically informed approach, which was nice. There were also some very fast moments. One of the movements seemed to have a divorce between the woodwinds and the cellos, but otherwise it went well. Church acoustics don't really help here; this church is particularly strong on resonance.

This was followed by an interlude of operatic and oratorio arias sung by Ignas Misiura and Milda Smalakyte, including an aria from Judas Maccabaeus in English, I think(wrong time of year), the 'how many shags has he had' aria from 'Don Giovanni' (wrong setting, in a church), an aria or two and a duet from Figaro (my memory is getting hazy here), and Franck's Panis Angelicus sung as a duet. This sounded odd to me, and reminded me of a few days ago when my son and I played the Bach double violin concerto on violin and viola (a version exists), where the viola with its stronger voice rather dominates the violin. This website suggests that PA is for soprano and SATB choir, which makes more sense. Here I thought they were just singing the notes, rather briskly, but not putting in the feeling of utter devotion that I would expect from this piece. And the lower voice was far too dominant.

Finally the farewell symphony with its well-rehearsed act of the players leaving the stage, which the orchestra has performed on New Year's Eve every year since 1966. Jee, the orchestra blistered its way through the Presto! Shame that Papa Haydn did not take into account the capacities of future players when only one or two were left on the stage. But everyone was happy and floated out of the church with the feeling 'what a good end to the year'.

Another airline mishap

Sergej Babajan, the delightful conductor and soloist of tonight's concert at the Vilnius Filharmonija, in the course of the evening appeared on stage in two different pairs of trousers, neither of which matched his blazer. Luggage is still travelling presumably. Since he's not that tall, it may have been too difficult to borrow a suit from someone else.

It was a great concert! We've had odd Boxing Day concerts with the Lithuanian chamber orchestra, particularly under its long-time conductor, when the conductor was tired and so was the orchestra. Since he left, the orchestra is improving, though it always needs a very strong personality to get them to play their best.

Tonight's concert, a full Bach evening (as is the tradition on Boxing Day, we were told - it ain't so, we distinctly remember a ropy Schubert one Boxing day), consisted of two Bach piano concertos and the Magnificat. I'm never convinced about Bach piano concertos; they just don't sound right - and why is there a harpsichord being played at the back of the stage (it was almost inaudible in any case, but maybe is needed for the continuo). The transition from the slow movement to the final fast movement in the concerto in f minor is so corny, it's pure romanticism.

But oh, that second movement - Babajan played it soooo calmly, it was total bliss! The orchestra picked slightly the wrong moment to be energetic - the cellos in particular under the delightful Dainius should just have swum along in the slipstream, rather than trying to drive the thing. And the pratt behind me should not have picked this quietest of all movements to get out his reading glasses 'clack clack', read the programme, and put them away again 'clack clack'. I suppose it was boring for him - otherwise you could have heard a pin drop. Babajan must have liked this movement, too, because he gave it as an encore. The other piano concerto (d-minor) went very nicely, too. Babajan really did beautifully with these concertos.

The Magnificat in the second half involved the choir Jauna Muzika, and the singers Jekaterina Tretjakova, Milda Smalakyte, Ieva Prudnikovaite, Mindaugas Zimkus, and Ignas Misiura (I am almost certain he used to be double-barrelled). If ever you need a singer to look style, call for Ignas - he can do style for Lithuania - and most Lithuanians are good at style anyway. But Ignas' outfits are sublime! Today he was wearing a black frock coat lined in red, set off by a maroon bow tie, and what looked like a Paisley pattern handkerchief in his top pocket. Ever so snazzy!

He sings well, too, though he had only one solo and one shared aria. Usually I hear him and his colleagues in a small church where I sit about 3 m from them; here I was a bit more distant, and their nice voices did not come across quite so well. Ieva's voice, which can have foghorn qualities, was more scattered here, and not quite so dominant. Not sure whether her aria quite hit the low notes that Ieva is so impressive at. Bit of a shame, really. Milda seemed to have trouble controlling her face when she was not singing. Jekaterina had a very bright soprano voice and was a bit over-enthusiastic with her entries. Mindaugas and Ignas did well, as they always do - a very solid, reliable pair of (pairs of) hands. You have an oratorio? You need sound singers? Get Ignas and Mindaugas on the job. Ignas is particularly multitalented; I always remember him doing a version of a Paul Celan poem on the topic of the holocaust - it was awesome! But Mindaugas, there was one odd moment - when Bach writes 'qui venit', even if it's on a melisma, I don't think it should be 'qui ve-he-he-he-he-nit', more like 'qui ve-e-e-e-e-nit'. I doubt it was meant to be a laugh.

Something else I found a bit strange, though I have not previously paid attention to it...when the cello (together with the harpsichord) was doing an obbligato line, or simply accompanying a soloist, why did it need to be doubled by the double bass? (In Lithuanian the 'double bass' does not have 'double' in its name). That seemed like a very high risk strategy - though they pulled it off perfectly. Not convinced that this is necessary, though. Maybe the double bassist was bored, or the conductor required it?).

Generally it all fitted together well, everyone paid great attention to the conductor, and it was a very pleasing performance. (One wonders how it would be with just the soloists as the 'choir', but probably the choirs trades union might have a word or two to say about that).

Judging by this concert Mr Babajan, who is from Armenia, but sensibly lives in the US, had a very successful trip to Lithuania. And I hope he finds his trousers.

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Premiere

Tonight, back in Vilnius, a concert of the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, the conductor Robertas Servenikas, and the Russian pianist Aleksey Volodin. Mozart's piano concerto No 25 and two pieces by the US composer William Bolcom.

Volodin had apparently played in Vilnius before (maybe standing in at short notice for Denis Matsuev?), possibly one of the usual piano warhorses. Even then there were some issues. However, with the Mozart today there were big issues. It seemed the music had no forte or piano (except right at the beginning of the second movement). Everything else was played at a mezzo forte, and it seemed as if all the movements had a big 'cantabile' written over them. The last movement was incredibly slow and REALLY SAFE. The conductor kept giving the soloist very precise entries. A totally spineless performance. There was some oddness (intentional??) in some of the cadenzas, and some more oddities in the second movement which had ornaments in places where they should not have been.

The Bolcom pieces were interesting; both involved an orchestra with a piano as an orchestral instrument. The first, 'Almost', a 'comedy' for 18th century orchestra consisted of tunes/harmonies straight from the 18th century mixed with shrill modern music (though perhaps not as shrill as Schnittke. Probably Bolcom has not suffered as much pain in his life as Schnittke). The symphony, apparently of 4 movements but I could only distinguish 3 movements, was quite interesting. It started and closed with white noise from the violins with different bits of tune, squeaks and tootles from the winds and the piano/celesta/keyboard (the pianist Sergey Okrushko was spinning like a top). The second movement was very American, with a beautiful country and western waltz just for the violas, followed by some yee-haw kind of stuff. The orchestra enjoyed this, as did the audience. It was quite fun music, and the orchestra managed to hang on in there thanks to the very clear conducting. Was not as good as the concert 11 days ago, though.

Wowed in Vilnius

Four hours after touching down in Vilnius, I was in my usual seat in the Filharmonija, ready for a concert of the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra. It was a blast!

The orchestra has had its ups and downs in recent years, but today it was on an up close to stratospheric! All due to the great white hope of Lithuanian conducting, Robertas Servenikas, who has a magic touch with all Lithuanian orchestras. Already in Mozart's 2nd symphony there was a sparkle in the orchestra that is not always there. In the second half they launched into Rossini's sonata No 6, 'La Tempesta' (the tempest? or the tempestuous one?) and boy, it was tempestuous. The violas took off like a steam train, and had a wonderful solo in the second movement. The final movement was totally amazing, from a slow start reaching a blistering pace, with dynamics like I have rarely heard them from this orchestra, and, it seemed, having enormous fun with it.

But the star of the evening was the very young British clarinet virtuoso Julian Bliss, who at a mere 17 is already performing with many of the major orchestras in the UK and the wider world. He studies with Sabine Meyer in Germany which itself is a sign of very high quality indeed. He plays a very expensive-looking clarinet with golden keys (which, to my ears, has a bit of a strident edge). He totally wowed the audience with expertly bubbling his way through Weber's clarinet quintet arranged for string orchestra and clarinet, having some delightful dialogues with the orchestra, and later with the very popular Introduction, Theme and Variations for clarinet and orchestra by Rossini, loved, it seemed, by my young seat neighbours who might have been clarinet students. At this stage he still seems a tiny bit restrained in his interaction with the audience (when playing essentially fun pieces) but that may still develop (nearer the end of the concert he relaxed into it). I remember the young Emma Johnson, about 20 years ago, winning the Young Musician of the Year with a similar rendition of the Krussel (?) concerto.

This was really a brilliant concert to be welcomed home by!