by Joanna Wulfsberg
We can safely assume that the paparazzi will flock to Justin Timberlake rather than Bernard Haitink. And it’s unlikely that Martha Argerich will beat out Beyonce for the cover of People magazine. Nevertheless, the 49th Annual Grammy Awards, to be held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on February 11, 2007, features some of the classical music world’s most glittering stars and coveted awards. Here’s a look at a few of this year’s classical categories and the musicians and albums nominated.
Selected by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Grammy (short for “Gramophone”) Awards consist of 108 categories, of which 11 honor classical musicians. (Another two are given for the production and engineering of classical albums.) After record companies and members of NARAS submit their entries for the year, the members vote twice, first to narrow the list in each category down to five finalists, second to select the winner. To ensure that the voters know something about the repertoire, rules state no one can vote in more than nine specialized categories in the first round or more than eight in the second round. Finally, all members of the Recording Academy help choose the four biggest awards – Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist. In theory, these can come from any musical genre, but no classical record or artist has ever won.
Out of all the nominees, this year’s sentimental favorite is surely the mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, nominated in the categories of Best Classical Album and Best Classical Vocal Performance. Hunt Lieberson died on July 3, 2006, succumbing to cancer at the age of only fifty-two. After her breakout performance, in a 1985 production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare staged by quirky director Peter Sellars, Hunt Lieberson quickly gained a devoted following for her distinctive, rich tone and incredible musical intelligence. Baroque music, particularly Handel, was one of her specialties, but she also performed a great deal of contemporary music, particularly after she married composer Peter Lieberson in 1997. It is her husband’s music that is featured on the nominated album, namely his Rilke Songs, Horn Concerto, and a work for cello and orchestra called Six Realms.
Rounding out the category of Best Classical Album are Bernard Haitink and the London Symphony Orchestra for their recording of the complete Beethoven symphonies, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony’s recording of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony, Martha Argerich and many collaborators for their disc of chamber music entitled Live from the Lugano Festival 2005, and René Jacobs and the Freiburger Barockorchestra for their new recording of Mozart’s late serious opera La Clemenza di Tito. All of the conductors involved have previously won Grammys, as has Argerich.
Hunt Lieberson’s competitors for Best Classical Vocal Performance include a three-time winner in the category, the baritone Thomas Quasthoff. Quasthoff’s current nomination is for the album Betrachte, meine Seele, a compilation of sacred arias by such composers as Bach, Handel, and Mendelssohn. British tenor Ian Bostridge, nominated for his recording of Britten song cycles, took home a Grammy in 1999. Bernarda Fink, also up for Best Classical Album and Best Opera Performance as Sesto in La Clemenza di Tito, has put together an unusual disc of songs from her native Argentina, in tandem with her brother, bass-baritone Marcos Fink. The final Grammy candidate in the category is baritone Patrick Mason, whose album showcases the little-known songs of American composer Amy Beach.
One of the most talked-about works of the year, the opera Ainadamar, by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov, has received multiple nods for a Grammy. Taking as its subject the death of Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, Ainadamar incorporates popular styles from all over the world, including flamenco and klezmer. One of the nominations for Ainadamar is in the category of Best Opera Recording, which means that the award would go not to Golijov but to the producer and performers. The latter include singers Kelly O’Connor and Dawn Upshaw (a frequent Golijov collaborator) as well as the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under the baton of Robert Spano.
In addition, Ainadamar is one of the choices for Best Classical Contemporary Composition, going up against two other pieces recorded by Spano and the Atlanta Symphony: The Here and Now by Christopher Theofanidis and Paul Revere’s Ride by David Del Tredici. Rounding out the category are Elliott Carter (for Boston Concerto) and James MacMillan (A Scotch Bestiary). Carter has already won in this category for his Violin Concerto; the others, all of whom are considerably younger, would be first-time winners. Golijov was nominated last year for Ayre and is probably the favorite this year.
In the year that marks the thirtieth anniversary of her death, legendary soprano Maria Callas is being honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Ironically, she never received a Grammy while she was alive. At the opposite extreme is the conductor Sir Georg Solti, who raked in the most Grammy awards of any musician in ANY genre – 31, with another 74 nominations besides!
Unfortunately, space does not permit an overview of all the categories and nominees.
For the official list, check http://www.grammy.com/GRAMMY_Awards/49th_Show/list.aspx
