Leonard Link

A Brilliant Night at the NYP with Salonen and Fray

Tonight's NY Philharmonic concert, third in a series of four performances of early 20th-century music led by Esa-Pekka Salonen with piano soloist David Fray, was notable particularly for the brilliance of the climaxes in all three works.

Before the intermission, we had Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta (known among abbreviation-prone music lovers as MUSPAC - because life is too short to say Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta every time you want to refer to this piece).  After intermission, there was the Ravel Piano Concerto in G and Debussy's La Mer ("The Sea").

It was an occasion for spectacular playing.  Every true symphonic movement builds to a climax at some point, a moment of ultimate glory where everything comes together.  Sometimes climaxes are quiet, moments of aching beauty, and sometimes they are loud and assertive.  This concert featured both, in virtually every movement of all three pieces.  But the one that really took my breath away was in the first movement of La Mer.  Debussy's description title of this movement is "From Dawn till Noon on the Sea," as translated from the original French in the Philharmonic program book.  Never before has it struck me so forcefully that the extraordinary climax, the surge of brilliance from the entire orchestra, shortly before the end of that movement, truly celebrates the sun bursting brightly from its highest point in the sky at noon.  The sonic image was startling in its clarity at this performance.

What Salonen brings to these works is a composer's sensibility and desire that all the details tell.  With him you don't just get the general picture, you get many felicitous details of figuration and scoring, never detracting from the overall effect, never unduly calling attention to themselves, but all contributing to a very rich awareness of the inner life of the music.  I thought there were a very few times in the quieter moments when he let the tension get just slightly too slack, but these were fleeting impressions.  On the whole, I think the necessary dynamic tension was maintained, and as noted above, climaxes were truly spectacular.

In the Ravel, of course, this also meant that the piano soloist was quite sympatico with the conductor's approach.  I know not how they came to their understandings, but in his Philharmonic debut young David Fray found a perfect collaborator in Salonen for his own individualistic approach to the piece.  This concerto is sometimes called a "jazz" concerto for the obvious influences of "Le hot Jazz Americaine" that was all the rage in Paris when the piece was being written.  Ravel certainly knew his Gershwin.  But on this occasion I was also struck by the notion that Ravel really knew his Prokofiev as well.  Ravel was original; nothing in this piece could have been written by anybody else, and yet it is clear that Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 must have been known to Ravel.  (Is this possible, chronologically?  I think so.  The Prokofiev was premiered in Chicago by the composer early in the 1920s, but he must have played it in Paris during that decade, and even if he didn't the piece was published and Ravel could have known it from the sheet music.)  In any event, it struck me quite forcibly while listening to the third movement how Prokofiev's keyboard style in his 3rd Concerto bears certain similarities to what Ravel was doing.

At any rate, I was much taken with Fray's playing of the Concerto, especially in the middle movement, where the ability to sustain a long line and to vary it with coloration through touch, accent, slight rhythmic variations, is so important.  This young pianist has the touch.  I've already enjoyed his Bach and Boulez recordings on Virgin.  Hearing him again inspires me to seek out the newest release (Schubert) and to hope he gets to record more French music as well.

And hearing this concert leads me to hope that now that he has retired as music director in L.A., Salonen is more available to guest conduct and will show up more often in New York.  His Janacek at the Met this week was marvelous, and his work with the Philharmonic was marvelous as well.  Please invite him back, Messrs. Gilbert and Mehta!!

The Truth About Carmina Burana - A New Recording by La Reverdie

The title Carmina Burana evokes for modern listeners the "scenic cantata" composed by Carl Orff in the 1930s, which became an international hit upon its recording by Eugene Jochum in the 1950s and, in the age of stereo and then digital recording, became the sonic spectacular to show off high-end audio systems, although some of the pre-digital stereo recordings (Fruhbeck de Burgos, Ozawa) remain among the best available.  The melodic sources that Orff used are a bit fuzzy, but the texts are of certain vintage - a medieval manuscript, probably of 14th century origins, discovered at the Abbey of Benedictbeurn in 1806, catalogued as Codex Latinus Monacensis, published in 1847 under the title Carmina Burana.

What many music lovers may not appreciate is that what was published in 1847 was essentially a collection of texts, not a collection of music.  The texts are verses that apparently were intended to be sung, but what little indication there is for music in the original manuscript is indecipherable.  So where did Orff get his tunes?  And, as numerous collections of music described as "Carmina Burana" have been performed and recorded by early music groups over the ensuing decades, where is the music coming from?  Most recordings of "Carmina Burana" (not the Orff, the early music groups) purporting to be presenting the original source material for Orff's scenic cantata are obscure about their sources.

A new recording by La Reverdie of 18 selections from Carmina Burana, on the Arcana label, is much more forthcoming.  Indeed, the notes provided by La Reverdie are quite frank in admitting that what is being presented is speculative reconstruction.  What they have found is that some of the texts in the original manuscript can also be found in other manuscripts of similar vintage, in some cases accompanied by music that can be deciphered today.  In other cases, they have sought out contemporary songs and chants to which the verses of Carmina Burana can be fitted, both in terms of their rhythmic implications and the emotion to be communicated by the text.  In some cases this involves something as simple as chanting the text in the style of the times with some improvised accompaniment - in one case they describe the result as "medieval rap music."  In any case, where other groups have presented a program labelled "Carmina Burana" without necessarily revealing their melodic sources, this recording is presented with refreshing honesty as a reconstruction, with a description of the sources for each piece.

La Reverdie is a talented ensemble of eight early music specialists who play modern copies of various medeival period instruments, and all of whom sing.  They recorded this collection in Amena, Italy, from October 13 through 17 in 2008.  It has been taken down in clear digital sound that incorporates the reverberant acoustic of the church in a Franciscan convent in that town, but without too much reverberation in light of the need to project the texts clearly. 

The performance is spirited but without the excesses characteristic of some Carmina Burana collections, most notably those recorded by Rene Clemencic, which are thrillingly theatrical but at times just simply "over the top" in their colorful "orchestration" and vocal dramatization of the texts.  La Reverdie's performances fall more comfortably within the mainstream of what is today considered appropriate performance practice for medieval music.  Who can say how "authentic" this is to the originals?  Nobody can know for sure, and the real test for a modern music lover is whether this is an absorbing musical experience.  For me it is, and I would recommend this new recording to anybody who loves Orff's 20th century gloss on medieval texts and who might be curious about how these texts might have been performed when they were contemporary rather than ancient.

Metropolitan Opera: From the House of the Dead

Not the best timing coincidence? - To be down in the dumps about the vote against marriage equality in the New York State Senate this afternoon, and then to attend the Metropolitan Opera's performance of Leos Janacek's opera "From the House of the Dead" this evening.  It just reinforces the melancholy.

But I have to say that this is a very powerful production of a very powerful opera.  Esa-Pekka Salonen, the brilliant conductor, is making his Met Opera debut in this run of performances (and will be crossing the plaza at Lincoln Center to conduct the NY Philharmonic this weekend - I'm attending on Saturday night), and he was splendid tonight, as was the orchestra.  As were all the singers in this huge ensemble.  The production is stark, but for this opera that works well, because it is set in a men's prison so the setting should be stark.  The male chorus and the soloists moved with wonderful virtuosity and coordination with Janacek's prickly music.  This is not a "fun" evening in the opera house, but rather a moody, moving meditation on the vagaries of life and the unfairness of the world.  Come to think of it, the coincidence of timing with this afternoon's vote is most appropriate....

Catching Up on Some Early Richard Strauss

At his "Remnants of Romanticism" concert with the American Symphony Orchestra earlier this month, conductor-musicologist Leon Botstein revived Richard Strauss's early Symphony in F Minor (Op. 12), which was a surprisingly delight with its Mendelssohnian scherzo and echoes of Bruckner in the finale.  I had never previously heard this work and promptly sought out a recording.  How could I have missed the wonderful performance by Neeme Jarvi and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, recorded by Chandos in 1992 and reissued on its mid-price Chandos Classics label in 2004?  In addition to fine work in the symphony, Jarvi offers two "fillers" that are more than mere fillers: a sumptuous performance of the equally early (Op. 13) Romance for Cello and Orchestra, well played by Rafael Wallfisch, and the six songs on verses of Brentano, OP. 68, sung with much feeling by soprano Eileen Hulse.  The entire program of 76 minutes is so solidly romantic that one just wants to wallow!  A bit belatedly on my part, highly recommended!

NY City Opera's Don Giovanni

Imagine the large multipurpose room in a Catholic school, convent or other facility - a large meeting room with plain walls, a large cross on the wall, squared-linoleum floors and plain white lights hanging from the ceiling.  Imagine this is in Italy, and that the congregation, with the assistance of visiting celebrities, will put on its own version of Don Giovanni.  The ordinary congregants who make up the chorus will dress up in their best out-of-date suits and dresses, while those playing leading roles will have carte blanche to dream up costumes from whatever period suits their fancy.  The Don dresses in a snappy modern suit, but his Leporello is dressed like an ordinary working man - perhaps a slight step above ordinary.  But the Masetto is in a neat black velvet peasant's costume suitable for Hallowe'en and all the women wear interesting gowns... and on and on.  There are few props beyond a very movable collection of chairs, a large wooden dining hall table (on wheels) that gets to carry a coffin in the second act, and so on.  "Let's do an opera...."

I wasn't convinced by the first act - somehow, the mixing and matching of costumes, the lack of sets or any attempt to simulate the settings described in Da Ponte's libretto, all seemed to let me down, despite the decent performance going on down on the stage with the proficient leadership of Gary Thor Wedow from the pit.  But then in the second act things took off, the action heated up, some of the men took their shirts off (these guys work out, especially the Leporello), most of Mozart's most inspired arias put in their appearance, reasonably well sung and the whole thing finally jelled for me.

Who was responsible for this concept?  Was it a team effort by director Christopher Alden, set designer Paul Steinberg, costume designer Terese Wadden, lighting designer Jane Cox and conductor Wedow?  Or was the vision controlled by one, most likely director Alden?  In any event, it was certainly innovative, the chairs put to good use, and the decisions taken on the penultimate scene of the Commendatore's arrival for dinner were most effective.

As to the cast, I found much to admire about each, not just the muscular charms of Leporello (and Masetto, who rivaled him for musculature as far as one could see) and - slightly less - the Don.  The important thing is the singing and the acting, and there the company was terrific all told.  Daniel Okulitch made a very convincingly caddish Don Giovanni, although one or two pieces of business went a bit over the line - like clicking his fingers at the pit to get the music started for the second act.  Jason Hardy's Leporello was convincingly athletic and on top of his notes, and Kelly Markgraf's Masetto stole the show, as far as I was concerned.  Gregory Turay's Don Ottavio, the only tenor among the leads, seemed a bit stolid, but that's the character to a T - and he sang his bits quite well.  Brian Kontes' Commendatore was suitably commanding.

The women matched the men in musicality and acting.  Stefania Dovhan's Donna Anna was particularly touching in her grief and expressions of betrayal.  Keri Alkema's Donna Elvira impressed as well, and Joelle Harvey's Zerlina was a sheer delight.  Also delightful, if not heard, was Alexandra Hastings in the non-speaking or singing role of Donna Elvira's sluttish maid, who really throws herself at the Don! 

This was the last performance of the run, and if the turnout was any indication of the entire run, there is enough demand for this opera in this production to urge bringing it back next year as part of the longer season one hopes is contemplated.

Thomas Meglioranza & Reiko Uchida at Cafe Sabarsky

The Cafe Sabarsky is a beautiful corner room in the old mansion at East 86th Street and 5th Avenue, across from Manhattan's Central Park.  The old mansion is now a museum, Neue Galerie, devoted to German and Austrian art, and Cafe Sabarsky seeks to recreate some of the atmosphere of a 19th century Central European restaurant.  Every now and then they offer a cabaret night featuring good food and live entertainment, and last night the entertainment part of the evening was provided by my favorite baritone, Thomas Meglioranza, in collaboration with his frequent recital partner, pianist Reiko Uchida, in a selection of songs all written within reasonable temporal proximity to World War I (and a few even having some topical connection to that conflict).  War nostalgia.... not quite!

The meal was excellent, the setting superb, and the performance the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae.  Meglioranza is an excellent singer of the standard art song repertory, has triumphed in opera (from Purcell and John Adams to the latest novelties, such as a production of "Angels in America" set by Peter Eotvos), but also has a terrific sideline in what might be called "historic cabaret."  He's not singing 1950s and 1960s Broadway standards here, but rather "lighter" fare by composers such as Kurt Weill (in his early German phase), Francis Poulenc, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Charles Ives (I don't think there is lots of precedent for thinking of Ives as a cabaret composer, but his more sentimental pieces work nicely in that setting).  Indeed, Meglioranza included songs by Anton von Webern in this show - horrors!  (Actually, quite nice the way he sang them.)  And Carrie Jacobs Bond.  Taken together, it was a very eclectic program, running about 70 minutes, and it was exciting to hear this team perform in such an intimate venue.

I found myself thinking that it would be so wonderful were he to have an opportunity to record these things, but on second thought, what would really make sense would be a DVD of a "live" performance, because the combination of performers, audience, performance space, and the visual aspects of performance all come together to magnify the effect of what might be a perfectly OK recording into a real cabaret concert experience.  Lacking that, however, an audio-only recording of Meglioranza and Uchida in this repertory would be well worth hearing.

"The Remains of Romanticism" at the American Symphony Orchestra, Nov. 15, 2009

This afternoon, Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra presented a program at Lincoln Center called "The Remains of Romanticism," providing a cross-section of works by late Romantic German composers.  The works spanned the period from the 1860s through the first decade of the 20th century, assembling music by composers whose names may be vaguely familiar from the biographies of the great composers of the time, and concluding with a relatively unknown early work by the major repertory composer on the program, Richard Strauss.

But first, the obscurities.  I use that word not as a judgment but as a description, for surely to the early 21st century American concertgoer the music of Robert Fuchs (1847-1927), Siegmund von Hausegger (1872-1948), Hermann Goetz (1840-1876), and Ludwig Thuille (1861-1907) will be terra incognita.  All of them won some degree of reknown in their own time, although some (Goetz and Thuille) died too young to leave the kind of major mark they might have left had they the opportunity of a few more decades of active compositional life.  They were all accomplished craftsmen, capable on the evidence of this afternoon's concert of writing credible works with beautiful orchestration, interesting figurations and harmonies, and intensely dramatic moments.  What none of them could achieve, however, is the kind of original first-rate tune that sticks in your head and haunts you for days and makes you want to listen to their music over and over.  And this explains, in my opinion, why they are obscurities.  Thuille's Romantic Overture, for example, is a thoroughly Wagnerian essay but without Wagner's inventive melodic gift or his ability to sustain an interesting harmonic tension over a long time period.  There were moments that sounded to me like snippets of the Tannhauser Overture and Bacchanale -- but of course I can hear those moments in a more interesting context by listening to the model and eschewing the knock-off.  Similarly, the Goetz Violin Concerto, a product of the 1860s, prefigures the great violin concerti that were to follow over the next few decades - Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak....  But it lacks their memorability of tunes, sounding more like elegant, well-orchestrated note-spinning.

Is this damning with faint praise?  Well, yes.  Each of these pieces was fairly interesting while it was being played, and sometimes even more than that, given the talent for orchestration among late 19th century German romantic composers, and one wouldn't mind hearing any of these pieces again, perhaps more suitably ensconced in the midst of a more varied program so they wouldn't wear out their welcomes.   But none of these pieces was crying out to be heard again any time soon.

On the other hand....

Quality will out.  Richard Strauss was a great composer.  He wrote pieces that remain part of the standard orchestral repertory more than a century later, the early tone poems.  He wrote operas that are part of the core repertory up to a century after their introduction, such as Salome, Elektra, Rosenkavalier.  His 4 Last Songs have entered the standard repertory, and such major effusions as Heldenleben and Don Quixote get played frequently to great acclaim.  So here was a member of the company of musical geniuses, whatever one thinks of his politics, and hearing the work of the 20 year old Strauss in his Symphony in F Minor, OP. 12, of 1884, is quite tantalizing.  He was not yet the fully formed master he would become, but there is much to admire in this symphony, especially in the Andante cantabile.  I thought the finale owed much at times to Bruckner, and wonder whether the 20 year old Strauss would have heard much of Bruckner's music?  Or were there just musical ideas in the air at a time when both composers, the elderly Bruckner and the youthful Strauss, could breath them in?  The first two movements are less distinguished, although the scherzo at times has a Mendelssohnian quality of scurrying lighteness. 

Botstein and the ASO make a great contribution by bringing this music "out of the closet" and letting us hear it in acceptable (if at times this afternoon a bit rough-and-ready) performances.  None of this music is familiar to the orchestra, so allowances can be made.  After all, the major orchestras mainly subsist on playing the same familiar core repertory as a significant portion of their concertizing, leaving plenty of time to learn the few novelties they stick into their programs.  At an ASO concert, however, one can almost guarantee that all the musicians had to learn every piece fresh for these performances, making their accomplishment most worthy.

The next concert in this series promises to be quite revelatory - an entire evening (January 29) devoted to the mainly forgotten music of Henry Cowell, an American pioneer of mid-20th century music who, to judge by the handful of works in my record collection, was a most inventive composer whose work is always worth hearing.  Be there or be square.... quite literally.  (And for those interested in gay cultural history, Cowell, although married, played around with the boys and even did prison time for some incautious cruising activity....)

Mighty Russian Music - Medtner, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich

Yevgeny Sudbin's new recording is finally available: the original 1926 unabridged version of Rachmaninov's 4th Piano Concerto, coupled with Medtner's 2nd Concerto and a Sudbin transcription for solo piano of a Rachmaninov song as an encore.  Grant Llewellyn and the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra are the collaborators.  The recordings were made in Raleigh, NC, in 2008, by BIS.  Of course, there is a detailed essay about the music by Sudbin, as in his prior recordings.

This young pianist has impressed me tremendously, both in recordings and in his solo recital at Peoples' Symphony Concerts last season.  He has incredible technical and interpretive gifts, everything he plays comes alive, and he makes what he plays sound better than it really is!  Rachmaninov was dissatisfied with the original version of his 4th Concerto, and produced a concise revision making major cuts, but Sudbin makes a convincing piece of the original.  Medtner's piano concerti have never found broad popularity, there are few recordings, but while you are listening to Sudbin in this or the 1st Concerto (on a prior Sudbin release), you are convinced it is a terrific piece.  The North Carolina Symphony Orchestra sounds like a major league band on this recording, which features the usual rich BIS sound.  Highly recommended!

For my gym listening this morning, I pulled off the shelf Valery Gergiev's recording of Shostakovich's 7th Symphony, made in a joint concert by the two orchestras he was directing back in 2001 - the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Kirov Orchestra.  I had bought this when it was first issued and just never got around to listening until now.  There is only word for this recording: WOW!  I'm late to the game, so I suspect most real Shostakovich fanatics will have long since acquired this one.  If not, don't hesitate...

City Opera Revives Weisgall's "Esther"

I attended the world premiere production of Hugo Weisgall's opera, Esther, written for the New York City Opera, back in 1993.  They didn't have much faith in new operas back then.  Esther was one of a handful of new operas commissioned by City Opera and put on during that season, receiving only two performances each.  Esther received rave reviews, and I bet they wish they had scheduled more performances.  Surprisingly, given the excited reception from the audiences and the critics, they did not reprise the production in subsequent seasons, and only now, a decade and a half later, has the City Opera remounted Esther. 

I was really excited by that 1993 performance.  I found the opera involving, even though the musical idiom was rather forbidding - atonal and lacking in contrast as the music unfolded.  This time around, I found it less involving.  Saturday's performance actually marked the return of City Opera after a year's hiatus.  They did a concert a few nights ago to show off the hall, but this first performance of four that will be offered of Esther was the first fully-staged opera they have mounted since the end of the 2007-2008 season.  It was unclear to me whether this was a totally new production, or whether they reused sets and costumes from that long-ago premiere.  In any event, the production was comprised of projections and scrims, not actual built-up sets, with colorful costumes meant to invoke ancient Persia where the story of Esther (from the Megilla, a Jewish sacred text) supposedly took place.  The opera's libretto is relatively faithful to the ancient scripture, fleshing out characters a bit but following the old story line.

The problem for me, I guess, is that the music remains mostly forbidding and grey, due to a lack of melody and a lack of contrast.  It seems to be continuously shouting at one, with little in the way of tenderness.  I did find that the second and third acts, especially the third, seemed more listener-friendly, and perhaps it was the spectacle of the final movements, with semi-clad exotic dancers and the colorful garb of the courtiers, that softened the music a bit.  Or perhaps one becomes more accepting of the idiom as the evening wears on.  In any event, I found the opera a bit static and, lacking memorable themes, a bit difficult to maintain focus upon.  I found my mind wandering....  It may also be that George Manahan, City Opera's music director, had more difficulty finding the "music" in the "notes" than his predecessor from that long ago season.  Lauren Flanigan reprised her role as Queen Esther, and made the most of it.  James Maddalena is Mordecai was excellent.  Stephen Kechulius as Xerxes, King of Persia (Ahasueras in the ancient Hebrew text), was OK without being really commanding - one never really understood his professed love for Esther.  Most effective for me were Roy Cornelius Smith as Haman, the evil prime minister who plots the murder of the Jews, and Margaret Thompson as Zeresh, Haman's wife and co-conspirator.  Maybe it's just that the folks who sing the roles of villians can be more easily memorable.

The audience gave a great ovation at the end, but it's hard to judge anything by that.  Certainly this was an honorable effort by all involved, and given the great reception the opera had on its first performance it should have been revived before now, but I would count this revival as only moderately successful, for which more blame accrues to Weisgall, since deceased, than anybody connected with the current production.

As to the theater - this was my first time back since the renovations that largely closed down the company last year.  I was in the third ring center, front row, from where the sound was pretty good.  The new seats are firm but comfortable -- the old seats REALLY needed replacing, as you could feel the springs in the seats, the covers were worn so thin over time -- but their design precludes stuffing one's coat under the seat, due to the presence of a large metal bar.  The lobby has been brightened up with better lighting and an illuminated wall for the ticket windows, but the fat ladies still dominate the orchestra-level lobby!  It will take more listening to judge whether the renovation was an accoustical success.  There are new aisles in the orchestra to ease getting to and from seats, but since I wasn't sitting down there I have little basis to judge that experiment.  The opera pit is bigger, so they are less crowded and can expand the orchestra for the big romantic operas.  That will be interesting to hear.

Welcome back, NYC Opera!

Beethoven and the Boston Massacre

While James Levine is recovering from surgery, the Boston Symphony has lined up a bunch of guest conductors to take over his concert dates.  Last night at Carnegie Hall, Lorin Maazel led the orchestra through readings of two Beethoven Symphonies, Nos. 6 (Pastoral) and 7.

This is about the most unimaginative concert programming possible.  Two Beethoven symphonies.  Nothing else.  Perhaps Levine expected to produce an extraordinary effect with probing, insightful readings, but we didn't get Levine. We got Maazel.  My verdict on him, after his years at the NY Philharmonic, is that every year he seemed more bored with the standard repertory works he was recycling (under Maazel, the NYP spent most of its time playing music it had recently played, over and over and over again....), and boredom can lead a super-technician like Maazel to do crazy things.  I think Beethoven is the greatest composer for orchestra who ever lived, as I wrote on Saturday about the NYP's performance (led by Alan Gilbert) of the Egmont Overture and 3rd Piano Concerto with Emanuel Ax.  And I guess each Beethoven Symphony is its own creative world, so you can make a good concert out of two of them.  But still, this is programming that lacks imagination, and to make it worth while you have to do a really good job of it.

Last night, an inert Pastoral Symphony was followed by a 7th that seemed to present all the wrong interpretive choices, strange tempo fluctuations, wierd balances (Maazel defied Richard Strauss's dictum not to look at the trumpets because it only encourages them; he visibly cued them to blare out their high notes and distort the balances), an allegretto that sacrificed all the drama and mystery of its opening with too loud, too thick sound from the low strings, and, in the finale, a mad dash through to the end that got the audience hysterically excited but slaughtered poor Beethoven.  It was as if Maazel had heard the recent recording by Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela and decided, anything he can do I can do faster.  Dudamel's 7th finale is about as fast as it can be played while still articulating the notes.  Maazel took it faster than the notes can be articulated, a real mad dash that bludgeoned the music and removed all the drama, transforming it into a carnival of speed.  No, Maazel, you are not "the Dude"....

I came away from the performance of the 7th quite disgusted, but the 6th merely bored me.