Classical Candor: TÁR: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture (CD Review)

TÁR: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture (CD Review)

By Karl Nehring

Hildur Gudnadóttir: For Petra; Mortar; TÁR; *Mahler: (rehearsals for) Symphony No. 5; **Elgar: (recording session for excerpts from) Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85; Johnny Burke and Jimmy van Heusen: Here’s That Rainy Day; Bach: (lesson on) Prelude in C Major; Elisa Vargas Fernandez: Cura Mente. Hildur Gudnadóttir; London Contemporary Orchestra, Robert Ames, conductor; *Dresdner Philharmonie, Cate Blanchett, conductor; Sophie Kauer, cello; London Symphony Orchestra, Natalie Murray Beale, conductor; New Trombone Collective & Friends; Elisa Vargas Fernandez. Deutsche Grammophon 486 3431

It's hard to know just where to start with this review, for this is a not a release that is easy to characterize in any sort of simple, straightforward way. It’s just not a simple, straightforward sort of recording. First of all, it is not a soundtrack album. DG states on their website, “The multi-faceted concept album features music from and inspired by the movie, including a series of stunning new tracks by Gudnadóttir, as well as extracts from major works by Elgar and Mahler. It complements the film by presenting completed, real-life versions of the music on which we see the fictional protagonist Lydia Tár working. One of the aims of the album is to reveal something of the complex process that goes on behind orchestral rehearsals and recordings.”

Perhaps it might be best to pause here for a background sketch of the film for those who may be unfamiliar with it. The plot revolves around the main character, Lydia Tár (played by Cate Blanchett), a conductor who has risen to the very peak of her profession – music director of the Berlin Philharmonic. However, all is not well in her rather messy – to put it politely – personal life; naturally enough, her psychological equilibrium is also increasingly under strain as the plot progresses. Of course, there is much more to the film than that (no, I have not seen it), but you get the general idea. It is not without controversy: Marin Alsop, probably the world’s foremost female conductor, remarked of the film in an interview for the New York Times, “I first read about it in late August and I was shocked that that was the first hearing of it. So many superficial aspects of Tár seemed to align with my own personal life. But once I saw it I was no longer concerned, I was offended: I was offended as a woman, I was offended as a conductor, I was offended as a lesbian.”

Now, back to the CD. Some classical music fans may find the cover photo vaguely familiar. In fact, some may even have the reason for that feeling of familiarity resting on a shelf somewhere in their CD collection. I no longer own the Abbado CD myself, but hey, I knew I had seen that Tár image somewhere, and I knew it was Abbado. As the liner notes, which were penned by the film’s producer/writer/director, Todd Field, declare, “one look at the the album’s cover art will be enough for you to understand that yes, in some parallel universe Lydia Tár was finally able to convince the good people at DG to create a cover adorned with her aped image of Claudio Abbado.”

Musically, the program combines, as it says on the cover, music from and “inspired by” the film, seemingly more of the latter than the former. As Field summarizes it, “the album includes Cate Blanchett conducting rehearsals for Mahler’s Fifth, Gudnadóttir’s making of the score for the film, in addition to music she composed that was inspired by, but not heard in the film, the New Trombone Collective recreating the storied 1967 recording of Here’s that Rainy Day played by the great Urbie Green, and finally Sophie Kauer making her professional debut in rehearsal for the Elgar Cello Concerto.” Now, you might wonder: Why such a mishmash? Field’s highlighted answer to that question is, “The tracks, like the film, are meant to invite the listener to experience the messiness involved in the making of music.”

Well, yes, it is a bit of a mess, this CD, but there is some good music to be found in these tracks, too. Gudnadóttir’s contributions are especially interesting. The young (b. 1982) Icelandic composer and cellist contributes three fascinating pieces to start off the program. She sings the melody of For Petra, the musical theme which forms the basis of a composition by the fictional Lydia Tár. The CD also contains a longer version of For Petra that Gudnadóttir has composed for orchestra, which is presented on this recording framed by introductory and concluding remarks by the composer to conductor Robert Ames and the London Contemporary Orchestra at the recording session (apparently intended to illustrate “the messiness involved in the making of music.”) She also contributes a three-movement moving expressive chamber composition titled Tár.

Next on the program are brief excerpts from Symphony No. 5 by Mahler, these now taken from scenes in the film wherein Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tár is rehearsing the orchestra. We get a bit of the opening funeral march, a bit of the scherzo, and of course – what else? – some of the gorgeous Adagietto. We also get Cate Blanchett speaking, imploring the orchestra to play with one voice. At the end of this session, she asks the orchestra members what they would think of having the Elgar Cello Concerto as a companion piece on the upcoming program (uh oh, she has an ulterior motive – things are getting messy indeed!). We then hear some chunks of the work itself, not as satisfying as hearing the whole work, but at least enough to sit back, relax, and enjoy. In fact, Sophie Kauer and the LSO’s 12-minute performance of the Allegro movement is the longest uninterrupted stretch of music on the entire CD. Following a bit more from Kauer’s Elgar audition (which Field in his liner notes justifies by drawing an out-of-left-field parallel with historical recordings in the same studio) we then get an even more out-of-left-field musical selection, Here’s That Rainy Day, played by a small jazz ensemble (truth be told, however, it’s actually quite pleasant) before the program concludes with a song that in the was used in the film in a scene that fictionally portrayed Lydia Tár making a field recording in the Amazon in 1990.

Just as it was hard to know where to start this review, so it is to know just how to end it. This is – by design, really – a release that is difficult to categorize. It is not really a soundtrack, nor is it really a documentary about how music is made. It does have some interesting new music by the young Icelandic composer Hildur Gudnadóttir, so in the end I can perhaps be justified in giving it a solid recommendation as a Hildur Gudnadóttir EP with some stuff from the film Tár thrown in as a bonus. Alternatively, for fans of the movie, I can recommend it as an interesting take on the film from its director with some fascinating new music thrown in as a bonus.

Meanwhile, I’ve reserved the DVD of the film at my local library. Although I will confess that I am not predisposed to like it, I’m willing to give it a try. Will my wife and I be able make it all the way through? We shall see…

John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.

Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

TÁR: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture (CD Review)

Meet the Staff

Mission Statement

Contact Information

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa