So, today is Friday the 13th, which means a couple of unmistakeable things. The first is that people tend to get a little nervous and not just a little superstitious whenever this date rolls around, and the second is that we are, undeniably, forging ahead into this new year. 2012 promises to be a momentous year in all arenas, with presidential election madness just around the corner, roiling economic currents, and, not to be forgotten, the predicted date of the apocalypse–if you’re putting your money on the Mayans. Smart money, though, is on humanity’s survival through this year, and, if last year is any indication, it’s a smart bet that classical music will not only survive but thrive.
By this time, the glow of the holidays is slowly wearing off. Vacations are over, Christmas trees are dotting the curbside, and the real world is knocking on the door again. This is typically the time of year that people start to realize that their resolutions will take some work (I’m still waiting on that 6-workout-a-week week to actually happen), and people can start to lose some of that New Year’s steam. Happily for most, it’s not too late to draw some inspiration for forward motion by taking a look back. A New Year is always exciting because of the glittering possibilities that it holds, and this year has the whole of last year’s classical music developments to build from. Nothing motivates us to move forward like success in the past, and the end of 2011 saw the publication of a slew of “Best of 2011” lists that read like highlight reels of the best moments in classical music from the past year.
These lists are as varied as the community is, and each one offers a different perspective on our artistic world as we know it. Reading this articles are a little like watching a political debate: if you’re looking for a consensus, you’re looking in the wrong place. After perusing a batch of these best-lists, there are a few interesting things to be gleaned from them. The first and most obvious feature of these lists is their diversity. One critic for “The Guardian” in the UK lists the British Radio 3’s broadcast of the complete works of Mozart as a highlight, calling it an “indulgent start to a rich, surprising, and only occasionally nauseating smorgasbord of a year.” He’s right: the year was a positive feast of activity, ranging from the premier of operas galore to a record-breaking performance of Havergal Brian’s Gothic Symphony at the BBC Proms–a performance that required 1,000 instrumentalists and singers. Yet another–eminently readable and entertaining–list in the LA Times’s “Culture Monster” feature reeled off a list of bests that included Oscar-like categories, including Best Performance by Gustavo Dudamel (his performance of Gorecki’s Third Symphony), Best Most Surprising Symphony Performance (“Esa-Pekka Salonen made Shostakovich’s incoherent-seeming Fourth Symphony a searing, soul-wrenching experience that left audiences shaken and amazed.”), and Best Old-Timers (awarded to 91-year-0ld Ravi Shankar for his Disney Hall recital and to 103-year-old Elliot Carter, who premiered several new pieces this year).
Yet another list in the Boston Globe details one critic’s picks for best albums of the year, which include a new recording of the complete string chamber music of Gabriel Faure, an archival recording of the late and extraordinary mezz0-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberman, and Riccardo Chailly’s Beethoven symphony cycle with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. This list of albums was the first one to strike me personally, as it also features a little-known (or less-known than it deserves to be) album by Ensemble Plus Ultra of sacred works by Renaissance composer Tomas Luis de Victoria. This album came to my attention by complete accident, as I heard it on a late night in the winter, driving home from a rehearsal. It was, somehow, exactly what I wanted and needed to hear at the moment, and it moved me in a way that I haven’t been moved for a long time. I sat in my car outside of my apartment for some thirty more minutes, listening to some of the most sublime vocal music I’d ever heard, and, although I went to bed late because of it, I can scarcely think of a better use of my time in the past year.
It’s these moments that make it onto these critics’ lists–the moments that stop you in your track and make your breath catch in your throat. For while there are no two lists that share more than one or two items, they all spotlight some of the most priceless moments in classical music. There were “bests” in everything from opera, staging, and musical comedy (Igudesman and Joo) to performances in the face of keen personal tragedy: baritone Nicholas Isherwood “opened every raw nerve with his starkly honest and cathartic solos in György Kurtág’s death-haunted “…pas à pas — nulle part…” when he gave the work’s U.S. premiere…on the night his mother died.” As the abundant diversity of these lists makes clear, there are more “best” moments in classical music than one person can hear, experience, or write about, and that’s one of the most inspiring messages to take into a new year. Classical music is alive and well and better than ever, and, if last year is a good indication, we’ll be having another great year. If that’s not enough to provide some fuel for practicing resolutions, what else is?
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