Statistics for Classical Music in 2018

[Belle]

I see my 'top 6' composers represented in the dominant programming statistics!

https://bachtrack.com/files/96739-EN-Cl ... s-2018.pdf

[John F]

I predict Bernstein will fall back out of the top 10 this year - and forever.

[Belle]

I predict Bernstein will fall back out of the top 10 this year - and forever.

You may very well be right. But the programming of composers at least doesn't include Mahler and Bruckner and this gives me cause for hope.

The opera programming surprised me; I wouldn't go to any of them, except those by Mozart, and I saw no baroque opera mentioned at all. A glorious genre, significantly under-represented in major opera houses, though Vienna has seen them at Staatsoper and Theater an der Wien.

[John F]

Not one Wagner opera made the list of the 20 most performed, nor one by Richard Strauss, nor "Fidelio." Other than Mozart, the Germans did poorly last season. But they may edge back into the top 20 when "Candide" (Bernstein again) slips back to where it belongs.

[barney]

John F is right - Bernstein may creep back up there in 2190, centenary of his death, or 2118, bicentennary of birth; otherwise he clearly does not belong in the top 10. Or when my dog, Lennie, named in his honour passes away - many years away, I hope, but he is 13 now. Just have to persuade the NY Times to give him an obit!

Very surprised to find Gianni Schicchi in the top 20 operas. But can't think of any baroque opera I would put there.

[RebLem]

I think barney alluded to the reason I think Bernstein was so popular in 2018--it was the centenary of his birth. I don't think he deserves a place in the top 10, or even the top 20, but perhaps does belong in the top 50. Just off the top of my head, I think my top 20 composers are, more or less chronologically,
1) William Byrd
2) Arcangelo Corelli
3) G. F. Handel
4) J. S. Bach
5) F.J. Haydn
6) W.A. Mozart
7) L. V. Beethoven
8 ) Franz Schubert
9) Felix Mendelssohn
10) Hector Berlioz
11) Robert Schumann
12) Johannes Brahms
13) Antonin Dvorak
14) Richard Wagner
15) Richard Strauss
16) Igor Stravinsky
17) Claude Debussy
18) Sergei Prokofiev
19) Dmitri Shostakovich
20) Aaron Copland
Looking over this list, I recognized in the middle of transcribing it, that I had neglected four of my favorites: P.I. Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Giuseppe Verdi, and Giacomo Puccini. I think I'll add Maurice Ravel and make it an even 25.

[barney]

Or make it your top 500 and you can get most in!

[John F]

Very surprised to find Gianni Schicchi in the top 20 operas. But can't think of any baroque opera I would put there.

Handel's "Giulio Cesare" is probably the most performed Baroque opera, the one that's put on by real opera companies as distinct from period ensembles. The Met has performed it 33 times, and the New York City Opera production of 1966, with Beverly Sills and Norman Treigle, showed that Baroque opera (some of it at least) is theatrically viable today.

What's makes these lists of favorites more significant than yours or mine is that they are based on actual attendance, the number of people who went to performances and, usually, paid to do it. Performing organizations can use such lists in their planning. I don't make such lists myself because I don't see the point. Bill Wyman, formerly of the Rolling Stones, actually compiled a list of all 213 Beatles songs ranked (as he saw it) from worst to best. Talk about wasted time and effort!

https://www.vulture.com/2017/06/all-213 ... -best.html

[Belle]

I've just found this!! I was at this very production (but not on this night) and didn't know it was on U-Tube; Concentus Musicus/Harnoncourt with Handel's "Rodelinda" - which I absolutely loved. It was the first opera I saw in 2011 at Theater an der Wien and what a glorious production. I recall what an experience it was for me looking down from above on the great Concentus and Harnoncourt in this historic venue - amongst the Viennese. And the subtitles over on the right and left of the pros arch - in German. Great opera!! A very sympathetic audience; I sat next to a young woman and when she saw that I was in tears she handed me one of these little packets of tissues saying "you'll be needing these" (how did she know I was an English speaker??). The woman on my right was handing her husband a large box of tissues, quite openly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-UNDzMOgFY

And I remember observing that the conductor and harpsichord player were the hardest working in that orchestra pit - with never a break!!

In March, 2011 I also saw this exact production of "Castor et Pollux" (Rameau) at Theater an der Wien. Another splendid period orchestra in the pit providing the requisite amount of transparent and luminous sound; just a brief sample here. I'm pretty sure Anne-Sofie von Otter made a small appearance too!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbR0SbLQHgs

And I saw "Alcina" some months later at Wiener Staatsoper. Marc Minkowski in fine form!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VdHwrLgjxI

[Beckmesser]

I was struck by the fact that Andris Nelsons was the busiest conductor of the lot with 121 performances, 30 percent more than the runner-up (Valery Gergiev with 93). It's true that he is music director of two major orchestras, but one has to wonder how he manages it all.

He was very active in last summer's Tanglewood season and he will be again this summer, for which I am grateful.

[John F]

90 performances is a very busy season, nearly two performances a week all year long. In earlier years, James Levine conducted even more at the Met, then settled down to 90. Both of Nelsons's orchestras had major international tours last season in which he conducted every concert; that may account for some if not all of his big number.

[Belle]

Very surprised to find Gianni Schicchi in the top 20 operas. But can't think of any baroque opera I would put there.

Handel's "Giulio Cesare" is probably the most performed Baroque opera, the one that's put on by real opera companies as distinct from period ensembles. The Met has performed it 33 times, and the New York City Opera production of 1966, with Beverly Sills and Norman Treigle, showed that Baroque opera (some of it at least) is theatrically viable today.

What's makes these lists of favorites more significant than yours or mine is that they are based on actual attendance, the number of people who went to performances and, usually, paid to do it. Performing organizations can use such lists in their planning. I don't make such lists myself because I don't see the point. Bill Wyman, formerly of the Rolling Stones, actually compiled a list of all 213 Beatles songs ranked (as he saw it) from worst to best. Talk about wasted time and effort!

https://www.vulture.com/2017/06/all-213 ... -best.html

"Real opera companies as distinct from period ensembles"? According to Wiki, these are the instrumental requirements for "Guilio Cesare" based on the Chrysander edition:

The opera is scored for transverse flute, two alto recorders, two oboes, two bassoons, four horns, viola da gamba, harp, theorbo, strings and continuo. The basic orchestra consists of oboes, strings and continuo. The horns, divided into four parts, are used in the opening and closing choruses. Other obbligato instruments are used to add orchestral colour to individual arias: a hunting horn for Cesare's aria "Va tacito"; divided alto recorders for the central largo section of Sesto's "Svegliativi nel core"; solo concertato violin and divided bassoons in Cesare's aria "Se in fierto"; alto recorders in unison for Cornelia's aria "Cesa omai"; a solo violin for Cleopatra's aria "Venere bella"; sustained bassoons in unison for Cleopatra's aria "Se pieta"; transverse flute, first violins and obbligato cello for Cleopatra's aria "Piangero"; divided strings for Cesare's arioso-aria "Aure de per pieta".

The final chorus for full orchestra with divided horns has a central interlude in the minor key with a duet for Cesare and Cleopatra accompanied only by oboes and continuo. It is preceded by another duet for Cesare and Cleopatra and an orchestral march with obbligato trumpet (not in the autograph manuscript and not always performed).The most elaborate and ravishing orchestration occurs at the beginning of act 2 in Cleopatra's aria "V'adoro, pupille" sung in the guise of Lidia to seduce Cesare. On stage there is a tableau of the Temple of Virtue, below Mount Parnassus with a second orchestra or "symphony" of nine instruments played by the muses, with muted strings in the pit. The celestial instruments—oboes, bassoons, viola da gamba, harp, theorbo and strings—are first heard off-stage in a sinfonia behind the scene in what Cesare takes to be the "music of the spheres", before the tableau is revealed on-stage as the music burgeons, with rich arpeggios in the harp, double stopping on the viola da gamba and strumming on the theorbo

I would definitely not be happy with this performed by a modern orchestra.

[Belle]

For anybody interested; in Part 2 of "Alcina" from Vienna there's a wonderful new talent - a singer from the Florian Boys' Choir - who sings a very difficult aria at 1:04:80. The night I was there the audience went into raptures after this performance, where he negotiated the most difficult melismas, ornamentation and vocal range - with the orchestra always right there on the notes clearly providing a musical trap for him!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bopUUj71UXo