The Scene

Musical highlights across North America

New York Bard Summerscape and Bard Music Festival Der Ferne Klang (July 30 - August 6) Berg and His World (August 13-22) Pity poor Franz Schreker. The composer with a startling talent never quite achieved the same level of fame as contemporaries such as Erich Korngold. His second-to-last opera was barred from performance by the Nazis and his final opera met with heavy protests, due to his Jewish heritage. Plans of fleeing to America never came to fruition and he died, despondent, in Berlin in 1934. Yet 76 years later Schreker’s music is now getting the attention it deserves. His best-known opera, Die Ferne Klang, receives a fully-staged production at Bard Summerscape. Leon Botstein’s brainchild has cemented the musician and college president’s place in American classical music. He may not be the most prepossessing conductor to take the podium, yet he has cultivated a devoted following for his commitment to unearthing rarities. Returning after a successful production of Les Huguenots in 2009’s Summerscape Festival, progressive director Thaddeus Strassberger will provide a suitable atmosphere to a work influenced in equal parts by Capriccio, Faust and La traviata.

Der Ferne Klang proved potent inspiration to Schreker’s colleague, Alban Berg, in both Wozzeck and Lulu. Unsurprisingly, this connection isn’t lost on Botstein, who devotes this summer’s Bard Music Festival to “Berg and his World”. Botstein gives over the first weekend to Berg’s Viennese works, setting them against pieces by Schoenberg and Mahler. The following weekend explores Berg in a wider European context, following him through the same time period that proved to bring about Schreker’s downfall. www.fishercenter.bard.edu

Québec Orford Arts Centre Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (July 31 and August 8) His Austrian birth and Viennese soul serve Till Fellner well in the piano repertoire of Mozart and Beethoven. The latter has figured prominently in Fellner’s career as of late,

Gustavo Dudamel lights up the Hollywood Bowl in August manifesting itself as a survey of the master’s 32 piano sonatas. If any portion of Beethoven’s considerable canon can symbolize his entire oeuvre, these works for solo piano (composed between 1795 and 1822) are it. He commences OSM week at the Orford Festival with the last three sonatas, Op 109, 110 and 111. Bread-andbutter though he may be, Beethoven isn’t the only composer in Fellner’s arsenal as he proves a week later with Schumann’s Piano

Leon Botstein champions Die

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Concerto. Known for being elegant without being indulgent, Kent Nagano is an ideal man to have on the podium for such lush Romantic repertoire — his meticulous lyricism should gel nicely with Fellner’s still waters of passion. www.arts-orford.org

Los ANgeLes Los Angeles Philharmonic Carmen (August 1) Gershwin and Bernstein (August 3) Boléro (August 5) Most Angelenos will readily admit that they don’t stay for the duration of a Hollywood Bowl concert. The LA Phil’s summer home is notorious for a parking lot that brings departing cars to a standstill as audiences (which can exceed 17,000) try to exit. However, with Gustavo Dudamel at the Phil’s helm for three concerts this month, the masses may concede to the City of Angels’s heinous traffic in exchange for three programmes that guarantee fireworks beyond the Bowl’s traditional pyrotechnics. Dudamel taps into his Latin roots for a concert production of Bizet’s Carmen, featuring the intense mezzo-soprano Natascha Petrinsky in the title role. In his final concert with his orchestra prior to the 2010-11 season’s opening night in October, he leads a sultry evening of works by Enesco, Piazzolla, Falla and Bernstein before going in for the kill with

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www.gramophone.co.uk Sounds of America The Scene

Ravel’s Boléro. These programmes bookend an all-American evening that gives a nod to Hollywood with selections from Bernstein’s On the Town and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, featuring his fellow Venezuelan musician, the pianist Gabriela Montero. www.hollywoodbowl.com

MAssAchusetts Tanglewood Music Festival Ariadne auf Naxos (August 1 to 4) Yo-Yo Ma (August 1 and 8) Bernarda Fink (August 5) Hilary Hahn (August 7) Alisa Weilerstein (August 13) Dawn Upshaw (August 20) Beethoven: Symphony No 9 (August 29) Much has been made of conductor James Levine’s health issues this year, particularly as they pertain to his work with the Metropolitan Opera and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In anticipation of an eventual and inevitable retirement both companies are courting replacements. Levine is still slated to lead a few engagements at Tanglewood, including a performance of Ariadne auf Naxos.

However, it’s the roster of guest conductors and performers that make this year’s festival shine — and make it difficult to pick just one standout. Divine Argentine mezzo-soprano

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Bernarda Fink sings Granados at Tanglewood www.gramophone.co.uk

Bernarda Fink gives a recital of works by Schumann, Granados and Rodrigo with dexterous pianist Anthony Spiri. Yo-Yo Ma displays his multifarious talents with Elgar’s Cello Concerto and a separate concert with his Silk Road Ensemble. The exciting young Korean conductor Shi-Yeon Shung leads Hilary Hahn in Sibelius’s scintillating Violin Concerto. Finally, no less than Kurt Masur sweeps in for the end of the season to conduct Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with a joyful quartet of soloists in Nicole Cabell, Marietta Simpson, Marcus Haddock and John Relyea. www.bso.org cALiforNiA Music@Menlo David Finckel and Wu Han (August 3) Spanish Inspirations (August 10) Dvořák’s America (August 13) Cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han have a lion’s share of accolades to their names: he’s one-fourth of the Emerson String Quartet, she’s an accomplished chamber pianist in her own right. They also share duties as artistic directors of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the founding artistic directors of California’s summer chamber series Music@Menlo. Seeing this dynamic duo perform together is still a treat:

yuja Wang wows audiences in Aspen

Finckel and Wu Han are intrinsically attuned to one another in the concert hall and take their performances to a higher plane. Unsurprisingly, these concerts are often quick to sell out, especially when the programme is Beethoven’s complete cello and piano sonatas.

A sultry mezzo-soprano with a voluminous voice, Sasha Cooke also lights up Music@Menlo’s programming this month in a diverse pair of concerts. In one is Falla’s Siete Cançiones populares Españolas, the other features selected spirituals and cabaret songs by Henry T Burleigh and William Bolcom for a recital focused on Dvořák’s America. Given Cooke’s fast-rising career at the Met, the opportunity to catch her in a more intimate setting is not one to pass up. www.musicatmenlo.org coLorAdo Aspen Music Festival Jean-Yves Thibaudet (August 5) Yuja Wang (August 14) Two pianists poised for greatness scale the heights in Colorado’s famous ski-town this month as part of the Aspen Music Festival. French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet made a splash earlier this year with a recording of Gershwin’s Piano Concerto and Rhapsody

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