BSO steers clear of negotiations over commercial releases
The Boston Symphony Orchestra has been recording all of its concerts with music director James Levine in state-of-the-art sound . But the BSO decided not to participate in recent negotiations between many other American orchestras and the musicians' union that will allow those orchestras to release their live performances commercially.
This week, 48 US opera and symphony orchestras negotiated a new pact with the American Federation of Musicians about recording live concerts for commercial release on CD and as downloads.
The list of signatories includes such institutions as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Opera, the Saint Louis Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Houston Grand Opera, and two of the ``Big 5" orchestras, the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
The other three of the ``Big 5" -- Cleveland, Chicago, and Boston -- were watching the negotiations with interest but did not participate in them.
``We applaud the effort that went into the negotiations and the result," BSO managing director Mark Volpe explained Sunday. ``But we felt that the approach was defined too narrowly because it focused only on the commercial use of live recordings. This is an important step, but we need to work toward a more comprehensive understanding of how we can function in the new media world. We need to create new paradigms."
In the new agreement, orchestral musicians will receive upfront payments for live recordings planned for release -- 6 percent of weekly scale, with a minimum of $80 per musician, for the first 15,000 units sold, and further tiered payments for units beyond 15,000.
Management must present projects in advance to the musicians, who have the right to vote ``yes" or ``no" on them. If the vote is positive, live audio recordings can be issued on CD and for download, but not for download exclusively. Ownership of the recordings remains with the orchestras and may not be sold or transferred, although the recordings can be licensed to distributors or record companies for an initial period of five years.
Volpe said that details of the new agreement will be ``communicated" to the BSO musicians, now in the process of their own periodic contract negotiations.
The new agreement clearly has implications for the BSO, but Volpe said it would be inappropriate for him to say anything on this subject while negotiations for a new contract are underway.
The masterpiece here was ``Philomel," for soprano and electronics, Babbitt's famous 1964 take on the baroque solo cantata in which the singer displays her full vocal and technical arsenal, and her ability to communicate contrasting moods and feelings. Lucy Shelton gave a compelling account of it, delivered in strong and vivid vocal colors.
The other older piece was a setting for baritone and small ensemble of two rhythmically complex sonnets by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Babbitt's text setting is elegant, and baritone Michael Hix delivered the words with disarming directness. Soprano Jo Ellen Miller was delightfully fresh in three lighter songs of more recent vintage, and Rachel Schultz juggled the coloratura pitches in ``Phonemena" with dazzling aplomb. It was amazing to hear how easily these two sopranos could segue from singing Bernstein show tunes with the Pops into Babbitt's world, but they delivered both with the same communicative zest.
There were also two instrumental solos, the brief but intricate ``Homily" for solo snare drum, delivered neatly by Aziz D. Barnard Luce , and the dark, atmospheric ``Play It Again, Sam" for solo viola, played with command and eloquence by Nadia Sirota . The violist, who grew up in Boston, was one of Tanglewood's grace-under-fire heroes this summer. She played straight through Jacob Druckman's Second String Quartet without a hitch, even though a wasp was prowling over her leg, stinging away.
Last year a small reissue label named ReDiscovery put out a CD of Bianca playing concertos by John Field, Massenet, and Grieg. It, too, was terrific. Mark Malkovich , artistic director of the Newport Music Festival, heard the record and invited Bianca up for a high-tea chat last month, for which I was delighted to serve as (unpaid) moderator.
The pianist, whose age one wouldn't dream of asking, retains the wholesome Betty Grable good looks preserved on her album covers. She was a child prodigy and made her debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 8; in those days she sometimes teamed up with child prodigy Lorin Maazel, who conducted her concertos. In the early '50s, she recorded about two dozen concertos in Hamburg that appeared on various labels; she also made some solo discs, including a lively account of the Chopin Waltzes recorded in a German bowling alley. Her recorded repertoire included many of the standards as well as unusual works by Ireland, Haieff, Menotti, Turina , the little-known Frenchman Andre Bloch, and others. Some of her performances also appeared in other countries under pseudonyms -- she was Eric Silver , Suzanne Auber , David Haines (the real name of her godson), Jean Bargy , Karl Bernhard , and ``some Russians whose names I don't remember," she said. Many of these still turn up on e-Bay.
Bianca was an elegant, vivacious pianist with superbly drilled fingers; she played from the heart. She is proud to have been the one to reintroduce the major piano works of Gershwin to Germany after the war; Gershwin had been banned during the Nazi era.
In later years she made recordings for Music Minus One and produced albums for Columbia Special Products. She doesn't play in public anymore but says she occasionally ``strokes" her piano; she is a member of the audience at most major concerts in New York.
Those who are curious can find two CDs of her playing -- with more apparently to follow -- at www.ReDiscovery.us , which has also restored to circulation many lost treasures of the LP era.
