A classical Grammy journey
When symphony recorded opera, engineer knew he had a winner
After a dozen years as director of the Houston Symphony, Hans Graf planned a tempestuous departure.
Graf, who became a professor for orchestral conducting at Mozarteum University in Salzburg, wanted to stage “Wozzeck,” a startling opera by fellow Austrian Alban Berg widely considered a 20th century masterpiece in its unflinching portrayal of
the consequences of war and violence for society. “Wozzeck” was among Graf’s favorite pieces of music. So in late February 2013, Graf conducted
two nights of “Wozzeck,” a labor-intensive production that required the Houston Symphony, the Houston Grand Opera
Children’s Chorus, the Chorus of Students and Alumni from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and soloists including Anne Schwanewilms and Roman Trekel.
They gathered and performed, and that was to be the end of it.
But that wasn’t the end of it. During rehearsals, a recording engineer with the symphony heard something special in the music, so he lobbied to record those two performances. Now, nearly five years later, in a market that continues to devalue the importance of physical recordings, “Berg: Wozzeck” has become a critical darling and prestige point for the Houston Symphony as the recording is nominated for a Grammy on Sunday for best opera recording.
If it wins, this won’t be the only accolade. Last fall the Deutsche Phono-Akademie, the German music industry organization, bestowed upon “Berg: Wozzeck” an ECHO Klassik honor, among the most esteemed awards in all of classical music. And the industry magazine Gramophone called it, “one of the finest Wozzecks on record.”
Not a bad run for an accidental album.
“The Grammy nomination really was just icing on the cake,” said Vicky Dominguez, chief operating officer at the Houston Symphony. “To receive a European award for an American symphony orchestra doing this incredibly difficult score is truly a remarkable thing.”
If “Berg: Wozzeck” does bring home a Grammy and receives the customary “Grammy sales bump,” this album won’t bring about grand changes in fortune for anybody involved. But the recording nevertheless is being treated as a valuable commodity in a fragile industry where, like other genres, recorded classical music is struggling to find a way to profit in the streaming age.
Brad Sayles has recorded every Houston Symphony performance since 2011, almost entirely for archival purposes. But during rehearsals for “Wozzeck” the recording engineer and composer said, “I just thought we had something special.”
So Sayles asked the symphony for money to rent additional recording gear “just to have a better archive recording,” he said. “Then everything lined up. It felt like a unique performance at the time. Hans was ready to leave and gave it everything he had. The performers rose to the occasion.
“It had a fluidity I hadn’t experienced before with Hans and the soloists and the orchestra was so engaged. I just felt this energy and excitement, especially with the soloists, who were so into their parts. Especially Roman: I think he’s probably the best Wozzeck I’ve ever heard.”
A few years passed and nothing happened with this “special” recording. Eventually, Sayles reached out to Graf, and they discussed pulling the recordings out of the archive and making them album-ready.
That involved production costs and payments to the artists. Even the selection of the cover art was a financial decision. In the fractured 21st century music industry — where streaming is a growth industry and physical albums are decreasing — there isn’t a large market for classical CDs.
According to 2017 data compiled by BuzzAngle, which charts music consumption in the U.S., classical music makes up 1.9 percent of all album sales. Rock and pop together represent nearly 50 percent.
Still, Sayles and Graf found an interested party in the Naxos label, which is stationed in Hong Kong and claims to release more classical music recordings than any other on the globe. The label strives to make what it considers great works available and affordable. Naxos has made “Berg: Wozzeck” available through Spotify as well as producing a double-CD for listeners who prefer that format.
Nearly a quarter of classical sales last year were CD sales, a higher percentage than for pop sales on CD, according to BuzzAngle. Still, classical listeners consume the music via streaming than through physical album. So classical isn’t just a market for listeners stuck in their ways.
The data presents a variation on a dilemma that spans the music industry: Streaming simply hasn’t filled the financial crater left by the crash of CD sales. And in the case of classical music, releasing records is often a moneylosing proposition. The Houston Symphony budgets some money for the production of recordings. But additional funds often have to be raised to make them happen.
Nevertheless, Dominguez maintained that recordings are “a huge priority” for the Houston Symphony’s music director Andrés Orozco-Estrada.
“They’re part of an effort of striving for perfection,” Dominguez said. “They bring with them a level of pressure to have perfect performances. It keeps the stakes high, and it keeps the orchestra razor sharp. It pushes the orchestra artistically, which is a great way to get artistic results.”
And because Orozco-Estrada is a young, talented and marketable artist, the symphony has been pushing more albums into the market. Next month Pentatone — a Dutch label with an interest in the conductor — will release “Music of the Americas,” which documents Orozco-Estrada conducting the symphony through a program of music by Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Astor Piazzolla and Silvestre Revueltas. Later this year, Pentatone will release the symphony’s recording of Haydn’s “The Creation.”
Dominguez said the symphony doesn’t see CDs as widgets to sell, but as an incentive to include in packages for donors.
“The reality is, it’s very difficult to recoup your costs,” she said. “But a CD is still valuable to present to people overseas. We have this European tour in March. You can get people more excited overseas, letting them know what’s going on in this Texas town. People might think we all ride around on horses here, and this is a way of helping them see the rich cultural fabric in Houston.”
Even if they’re just lures for investors, classical music recordings have become a prestige relic, especially when they earn notice from the industry.
So honors like the Grammy nomination are welcomed. And it’s worth noting that “Berg: Wozzeck” actually isn’t the only Houston-based recording nominated in the classical Grammy categories.
Houston Grand Opera, which played a part in putting on the production that led to “Berg: Wozzeck,” and its artistic and music director Patrick Summers are nominated for producer of the year, classical, for “Heggie: It’s A Wonderful Life,” which premiered in late 2016 and was released last September by Pentatone.
The Grammy Awards frequently bear a windfall for winners. BuzzAngle found a postGrammy spike in album sales last year to the tune of 291 percent. One notable case was that of Sturgill Simpson, a country music singer-songwriter: his “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth” won best country album and was nominated for album of the year. Its sales surged 789 percent after the Grammys.
Such spikes don’t find their way to classical music.
“What’s a 300 percent increase if you only sold 10 albums?” said Dominguez, laughing.
Even then, Grammy expectations among those involved with “Berg: Wozzeck” are modest.
“Fat chance,” said Houston Symphony violinist Chris Neal. “A German 12-tone opera that ruminates on human weakness of character and death ... . ”
Still, Sayles left this week for New York as the symphony’s Grammys representative for “Berg: Wozzeck.”
“For a Southern orchestra in the United States to perform an atonal German opera and do it so well is remarkable,” Sayles said. “For it to receive the attention it has is even more so.”