This evening’s Piccolo Spoleto Spotlight Concert, Music in the Time of Charles Ives, brought the Piccolo Spoleto Festival Orchestra (listed in the program as the PS Conservatory Orchestra) to the welcoming acoustic of New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist Church under the able baton of Maestro Donald Portnoy. After the deluge of intimate trios and other chamber ensembles which have graced this series so far this week, the sound of a (well, almost…) full orchestra brought a welcome expansion of tonal color, wider textures, and even two vocalists to our series. The orchestra handled this modernist fare superbly, with only a slight muddiness occasionally coming from the violin section. Programming seven (count ‘em…) composers of such vastly different temperament and style together may seem like a risky proposition; our musicians not only brought them together, but also created a rich context for evaluating the impact this period was to have on later Twentieth Century music.
We began with Children’s Day, a lilting romp of an Allegro from Charles Ives’ Pulitzer Prize winning Symphony No. 3, “The Camp Meeting”. This beautiful movement delightfully creates a very slight off-kilter feeling, showing exactly how modernism strove to take the traditional elements of musical expression and combine them in new ways. In light of Ives’ tireless (yet completely secretive) support of all forms of “new” music that came after he had stopped composing, this piece now sounds almost quaint, but (almost) left me wishing a few of the other works had been dropped so we could hear the whole symphony in this large context. Nah, the program was perfect as it stood…
Manuel de Falla’sSiete Canciones Populares came next, and we welcomed mezzo-soprano Jennifer Luiken to the stage. Her darkly rich and full voice (with masterful vibrato) served these Spanish gems well. The watery textures of Asturiana (the third song) were a particular highlight for me.
From Ernest Bloch’sConcerto Grosso No. 1, for strings and piano, we then experience the opening Prelude, and closing Fugue. The agitated blocks of sound rubbing against one another during the Prelude were positively thrilling! So much so, that normal concert etiquette was abandoned at its conclusion and the orchestra received a round of applause. Your humble scribe must admit that while I am normally quite the stickler for such etiquette…I joined in… The Fugue then announced its brisk theme, which seems to ask the question, “What if Brahms had been born a farmhand?” By itself, this theme could be construed as a bit maudlin, but when its full complexity dawns, it reveals itself to be a masterful construction.
Up next came Sergei Rachmaninoff’sVocalise, for Orchestra, Op. 34, No.14. It’s sweetly plaintive melody deeply touched all present, acting in this program as a palate cleanser before the arrival of our second vocalist.
Soprano Jill Terhaar Lewis then took the stage for three of Giacomo Puccini’s most popular arias. “Mi chiamano Mimi” from La Boheme kicked things off in grand style, but our singer wasn’t singing quite loud enough at the beginning to compete with the orchestra. By the aria’s end, she found a proper balance, revealing astounding control and a sweetly round, but firmly grounded tone . “Senza mamma, o bimbo” from Sour Angelica and “O mio babbino caro” from Gianni Schicchi proved her point!
The sharply angular and dissonant contours of Carl Ruggles’Men and Mountains lifted the Puccini induced reverie quite abruptly, but served as a good reminder that this is music that looks forward, ever. Ruggles was a member of the group of composers known as the “American Five” (of which Ives was the most prominent), the modernist answer to Russia’s “Five.” The first movement, Men, drops one into the Minotaur’s Labyrinth without so much as a peck on the cheek, always finding a sharp angle and keeping any true sense of resolution just out of reach. Lilacs opens with quiet dissonances that proceed to rise and fall like waves. The effect is one of walking down a school hallway while someone in each room is raking their fingernails across the blackboard (and occasionally we venture into one of those rooms…). Sure, it’s unsettling, but quite evocative. Marching Mountains closes this piece by combining elements of the previous movements, then alternates between exhaling them softly into the ether, and huffing and puffing them with a fiery dragon’s breath. Not the prettiest of works, but one which boldly achieves its purpose.
Our concert closed with the Allegro from Sergei Prokofiev’sSymphony No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25, “Classical.” It served a fine and richly exciting ending to this wonderfully varied concert which our orchestra obviously enjoyed playing, and their playing showed it. The more conventionally “pretty” lines went over well with the audience as well, and a standing ovation ensued. Another most satisfying evening for the Spotlight Series. And me…
Lucky Lindsay: I got to hear the terrific Imani Winds – not just once, but twice. Thursday’s third Music in Time program was devoted entirely to them – and I was part of their absolutely enchanted Simmons Recital Hall audience. It was quite a different experience, compared to their big gig at the Gaillard the night before – where they And the (very noisy) Spoleto Festival Orchestra blew us all away with their brilliant traversal of David Newman’s big Concerto for Winds … you can read all about it right HERE.
But Thurdsay, they did their more everyday thing: performing as the polished and exuberant chamber ensemble that they are. As series host John Kennedy told us, this Grammy-nominated, all-African-American quintet has done for the classical wind quintet what the revered Kronos Quartet did for the string quartet. Though classically grounded, they – like the Kronos folks – concentrate on the chamber music of today: performing modern classics and the latest creations from promising contemporary tunesmiths, many of which they commission themselves. Visit their nifty website to find out more (that saves me from listing all their names, too!) – or if you’d care to support their ongoing efforts to enrich the wind quintet repertoire.
They kicked things off with a promising pair of fairly short works composed by their own gifted members. Titilayo (meaning “eternal joy”) – by French horn whiz Jeff Scott – was built on catchy snippets of roots music, in an overall context of manic momentum and perky pizzazz. Then we heard fab flutist Valerie Coleman’s Portraits of Josephine: a four-movement suite commemorating the legendary Josephine Baker, whose hundredth birthday comes up this year. It’s a series of musical “snapshots” of her varied life – from her early years in St. Louis to her glory years in France, where (among other things) she tried to establish sort of a “rainbow utopia” at her Les Milandes castle. The music was engaging and evocative – especially the bluesy musings of the St. Louis section.
Next on the menu was Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet, by Hungarian marvel György Ligeti: one of the giants of the late 20th Century. These mostly very short pieces (some well under a minute) explore all the varied sounds, effects and tone-colors that a woodwind quintet is capable of. We heard everything: grumbling low textures, collective squawks (and what sounded like sneezes), tense dissonances, twittering cacophony, in-your-face tonal “splats,” etc. We even got to experience the phenomenon of “ghost tones” – a creepy overtone effect that’s produced when the various woodwinds play high notes in a certain way. I could’ve sworn that there was a faint clarinet somewhere behind me.
The next number — Terra Incognita – was commissioned from Jazz giant Wayne Shorter: a number that the composer later told them they could play as freely as they wanted to — (like ignore the bar lines and meters). That probably means an invitation to improvise — and it sounded like that’s just what they did. I bet it never sounds the same twice. It was brainy, hip, and oh-so spontaneous. I loved it.
They finished up with the evening’s best-known piece: Argentinian composer Astor Piazzola’s Libertango, as arranged for wind quintet. As in most of his work, this music explores the outer limits of the tango: the languorous dance music of his native Buenos Aires. It gave us sultry Latino strains, but elevated to classical complexity. It’s always a treat, but this bunch made it sound extra-special.
Forgive me if I don’t include as many of my usual artist links for awhile. I’m in the throes of a temporary crisis: my laptop was stolen Thursday, and my only backup for now is an old dinosaur of a PC at home that runs with all the speed of an arthritic turtle – and only a dial-up web connection. And in the middle of Spoleto? Grrrr. Still, I’m anxious to tell you what I can about the two choice events I got to today.
Chamber Program V kicked off at 1:00 p.m. today with another delightful confection from Francis Poulenc (we got his wonderful Flute Sonata in program I): his cheeky little Duo for Clarinet and Bassoon. Joining series stalwart Todd Palmer was bassoon wonder Peter Kolkay, in his first series appearance. And I look forward to his future appearances, too – this guy can really play! Short though it was (three fleeting movements), we still heard many of Poulenc’s hallmarks: humor, whimsy, and sweet wistfulness. His saucy final cakewalk enchanted. Palmer and Kolkay looked like they were really enjoying themselves.
Enter the super-versatile piano wizard Stephen Prutsman – who also happens to be a composer, arranger and conductor. He treated us to a sampling of works from his recently released CD of J. S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II – considered by many (along with Book I) to be THE pinnacle of contrapuntal keyboard music. BTW, this is the third time this festival I’ve gotten to blog about the exalted wonders of Bach, before whom every other composer must bend the knee.
He gave us three of Book II’s 24 Prelude-and-Fugue sets, dazzling with his dexterity and drive (Bach fugues are NOT easy to play – I’ve messed up a few of them myself). To boot, he seduced us with his searching interpretation and emotional intensity. Prutsman definitely subscribes to the romantic school of Bach playing … but so what? You can subject Bach’s work to just about any style or approach you can name, and his musical truth will still shine through.
Next we heard Prutsman the composer. Fellow pianist Pedja Muzijevic joined him onstage for one of his latest pieces, in its world premiere performance: (get this)Sarah’s Band and her Pet Chatterbox, for piano four hands. (I won’t even begin to tell you how he came up with it – come see me at Millennium Music if you’re curious). Anyway, it was quite a piece: solemn and reflective at first – then turning busy and kinetic, with a little violence thrown in. The style was distinctly minimalist, with some catchy rhythmic shifts and syncopations to hold our interest.
Oh – and not far into the piece (and of course at its quietest possible moment), some dolt in the audience got not one, but TWO freaking cellphone calls in a row – destroying the music’s gentle spell. Let’s lobby to make it a capital offense!
Another pertinent side observation is that the Memminger’s acoustics seem rather unkind to solo piano music, especially during loud or busy passages. Even though Prutsman used his pedal sparingly, the auditorium’s sharp sound tended to degrade his usual clarity of sound in quite a few passages.
The final number was one of the BIG, rare chamber works that Wadsworth promised us this time ‘round (I’ve already mentioned it): Ludwig van Beethoven’s perky and high-spirited Septet in E-flat, Op. 20 – for violin (Daniel Philips), viola (Lesley Robertson), cello (Edward Arron), Eric Ruske (horn), plus the aforementioned Peter Kolkay and Todd Palmer. Oh – and there was Tony Manzo (I hope I spelled it right) on double bass: a hitherto unheralded series newcomer who flew in just yesterday.
As the fairly early opus number would suggest, this is Beethoven still somewhat under the thrall of his predecessors Mozart and Haydn (his teacher). But Beethoven, the rebellious imp, was also there in full force. I won’t take you through all five movements – but we heard many qualities here that poor Ludwig doesn’t always get credit for: boundless wit and humor, buoyant charm, and gracious lyricism. I especially enjoyed the fourth movement’s cunning theme-and-variations. Our players were dead-on, and everybody got their chance to shine. You can catch it twice more on Friday.
A final note – and your next Eargasm alert: the following program (No. VI), kicking off Saturday at 11:00 a.m., will feature the series’ biggest single work: Franz Schubert’s delicious Octet in F major, D. 803, one of his most revered chamber works. You almost never get to hear it, ‘cause it’s damned hard to assemble all the quality musicians you need at one place and time.
Tune in to Eargasms tomorrow if you’d like to hear about how the imani Winds sounded (in Music in Time’s third program), without a big orchestra backing them up.
The muted steel-gray of an overcast day greeted my rising with serious intent. The rising and falling of several intense emotional states in friends and co-workers throughout the day kept my mind on practicing equanimity. As I strolled to this evenings concert, a one-armed flower seller cursed at me for smiling and nodding in silent greeting.
Talking about music is like dancing about architecture. –Steve Martin
This evening’s concert, the title of which had already changed from Marina Lomazov and Friends to Andrew Armstrong and Friends due to Marina’s being rendered out of commission by an accident, became simply Friends as the musicians took the stage. Proving himself (yet again…) a hearty Piccolo Spoleto stalwart, Andrew Armstrong stepped into the emotionally draining and icily stark world of Dmitri Shostakovich’sPiano Trio No. 2, Op. 67 with a grace and ease that belied the fact he had only two days of practice with fellow trio members Yuriy Bekker and Norbert Lewandowski. Now, these are musicians who know each other well and play together quite often, but two days? The results spoke for themselves.
From the muted, ghostly lament of Mr. Lewandowski’s cello which opens the work, the die was cast for the entire performance. Music need not be what conventional taste might call “pretty” to be important, fruitful, and yes, even beautiful. As the Andante picked up steam (so to speak…) I was struck by our trio’s precise sense of timing. The always crisp and full tone Charleston audiences have come to know and love from Mr. Bekker led a sure path through the fugato, creating a near perfect balance of worry and quiet dread in the minor tonal sections, and the sense of a starkly open plane, so characteristic of Shostakovich, in the sections of major key tonality. In the Allegro con brio there was a marked emphasis on the brio, which burst upon the audience with thunderous rolls, laying bare the object of nameless dread. Thrilling! Our string players stopped to adjust their tuning before diving into the icy waters of the Largo. Although this short movement is based on a simple, repeated chord progression in the piano, the space created allowed our strings to call forth an unsmilingly devastating melody, ravishing in its intensity. The Allegretto - Adagio which closes this trio aptly summed up the work with its hallucinatory one-pointedness of intent and just over the county line to sinister arrangement of a Jewish folk tune. The Largo’s theme returned, slowing the proceedings down, and we found the barest whisper of life (or if not life, then peace…maybe…), in the nearly silent pluck of strings with which we were left. Devastating. Gloriously so.
When Mr. Bekker and Mr. Lewandowski returned to the stage they were accompanied by violinist Alan Molina, Jill King, viola, and pianist Joseph Rackers for Alfred Schnittke’s harrowing Piano Quintet. This work stands as not only a fulcrum of Schnittke’s work, but also as an introspective anomaly in his usually outward looking output. Mr. Lewandowski introduced the work, advising us of Schnittke’s “bitter and sarcastic style,” based on simple structures, and warned that if he could only use one word to describe Schnittke’s oeuvre, that word would be “despair.”
A childlike dirge opens in the piano as the Moderato begins, with occasional flurries of rapidly passing dissonance. The strings pick up on that dissonance and give it an echo, creating a creepily brutal landscape of grief. An insistent single note ostinato, high on the piano announces a return and “beautifully” ends the movement with the silence of death. The simple original structure of In tempo di Valse gets layered as a cannon, creating a ghostly meeting when carried by all five musicians (oh, the pleasure/pain of those minor second intervals!), and a moonscape of devastation when carried by two or three. Throughout the Andante, Lento, and the closing Moderato pastorale, I found myself lost in this reverie on the effects of death upon the living. From the micro-tonal washes that called forth the ghost to the air-raid siren wails of grief unassuaged, Schnittke searches in vain for relief, finally inviting us to bite the tin foil with him. As the last movement progresses, a quiet, meditative quality slowly seeps in as the barest of undertones. The strings back off as the piano falls into its ostinato once again. And then there is silence. This dense, thorny, and oddly accessible work was played with a clarity and attention to detail which truly brought to “life” this unpretty, yet devastatingly beautiful masterpiece.
Postlude
A digitized image of Marc Chagall’s Birthday greets me as wallpaper when I open my cell phone. I think of my friend, who placed it there today at lunch. I smile.
I’ve been focusing on Piccolo Spoleto’s Spotlight Concert Series this week, and have to say that the sheer variety of offerings within this one series has my head spinning! This evening’s concert by The Converse Trio proved no exception. Violinist Sarah Johnson was here for the birth of our dear festivals. She and her colleagues performed a program which succinctly captured the nature of the gargantuan beasts, Piccolo Spoleto and Spoleto. How might I make so bold a claim? Well, read on…
The concert opened with Franz Joseph Haydn’sTrio No. 1, Hob 25, in G Major, bringing to florid life a work from that foundational luminary of Western art music. The trio as a whole works like a sort of wedge, beginning with a stately march. The Poco Adagio, though slower, creates a sense of widening through its ingenious melodic content. It closes with a playful dervish, which our trio dove into with obvious glee! Our musicians displayed a facile and wonderfully bright tone, as well as the effortless communication such intimate fare demands. During the opening Andante, which is dominated by the piano, pianist Dr. Douglas Weeks occasionally allowed that dominance to carry his lines a touch out of balance with the other instruments, but never to the point of distraction. The Poco Adagio, a soft, deceptively simply piece, showed exactly why Sarah Johnson is so loved here, and also how cellist Kenneth Law plays a near perfect complement (and foil!) to her. Joy took flight into the infinite with utter abandon from the first notes of the Finale. Rondo all’Ongarese.
From the deep grounding provided by Haydn we then moved on to a living composer, Robert Aldridge. (Sorry there’s no link to his website, it appears to be down right now.) Dr. Weeks knows the composer, and provided insight into his career, as well as some tantalizingly descriptive tidbits of what to expect during Aldridge’s Trio for violin, cello and piano. Jazz, 1960’s western movie music, Vaudeville tunes, and the theme from Mighty Mouse? Written in classic sonata-allegro form? This I gotta hear!
After a rambunctious start, the Allegro Moderato knocked into a sort of meta-clavé rhythm of complex chords, driven by the piano, which snaked around the violin and cello as if it were tango night with The Jetsons. Every so often, the dance gave way to ethereal passages which left me in a state of absolute wonder! This movement showcased Kenneth Law’s vibrant touch, yet the whole movement’s effect was one of insisting that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts; for the music and the trio performing. I could call the Scherzo and Trio Coplandesque, but then, Aaron never really went through a psychedelic period, did he? The speed never let up through its waves of crescendos and decrescendos, with our pianist cranking out deliciously long scale runs up and down the keyboard while cello and violin provided the continuity. For all its speed and complexity, a contemplative air permeated as if to say, “Tofu. It’s what’s for dinner.” A delicate piano line opened the Arioso, gracefully leading to its marvel of a melody. Sarah and Kenneth…oh, so gently…passed it’s folk-like lines between their instruments like a jewel of great price. Its contours touched on several emotions, happy/sad, comfort/longing, without ever falling into maudlin sentimentality. It’s the kind of melody around which T-Bone Burnett could forge a whole film score. Truly, the highlight of the evening. The closing Vivace took us on a wild (and I mean WILD…) roller-coaster ride through a not quite alien land populated only with Irving Cohen clones constantly shouting “Gimme a C, a bouncy C.” Our trio appeared to be having a grand time with this (again…) complex and demanding workout, and the audience ate it up. It ended with a quite literal bang, and we were on our feet!
This sort of combination, the marriage of works that have transcended time with the very best of works which ultimately will take that step perfectly encapsulates what our festivals are all about. Bravo!
If you haven’t heard vivacious violist Hsin-yun Huang or super-tenor Paul Groves yet, you’ve got one more chance: tomorrow’s 11:00 p.m. concert will be the last outing for Program IV – the final one featuring these fab festival newcomers. I had the unqualified joy of catching it this morning.
After years of bugging Dr. Wadsworth about this one, clarinet sorcerer Todd Palmer finally got his way. The opening item was Bernhard Crusell’s bubbly and beautifully-crafted Clarinet Quartet. Crusell, an obscure classical-era Scandinavian composer, was also one of the leading clarinet virtuosos of his day. I own his clarinet concertos on CD, and I’m here to tell you that he wrote some really great stuff. His delightful music offers a mildly Nordic take on Haydn and Mozart: it’s got the same kind of melodic appeal and gracious lilt – with just a touch of rustic simplicity. There’s precious little chamber music for clarinet out there … no wonder Palmer’s been lobbying for it.
Rounding out his all-star team were violinist Geoff Nuttall (St. Lawrence Quartet’s lead fiddler and new associate series director), violist Hsin-yun Huang and cellist Alisa Weilerstein. Todd made Crusell’s licorice stick pyrotechnics sound easy, and his colleagues supported him to the hilt.
Then it was on to yet another sublime rarity: late-romantic German cellist and composer David Popper’s glowing Requiem – in its chamber arrangement for three cellos and piano (there’s also an orchestral version). Discharging the cello duties most deliciously were Alisa Weilerstein, Chris Costanza and Edward Arron: just maybe (according to Wadsworth) the three best cellists ever to take the stage together in this series’ rich history.
Expertly backed up by Wadsworth at the Steinway, our trio of cellists delivered a searching and bittersweet account of this neglected masterpiece, bringing out its keening sense of fathomless grief as well as it’s almost Brahmsian intensity. They fed upon each other, trading off themes before coming together in luscious harmony. The final soft measures (with mutes attached) made for sheer, gut-wrenching musical sorcery. Small wonder cellists revere this piece (and the rest of Popper’s cello output).
Enter Paul Groves, for his festival swan song: the potent of Winter Words, Op. 52, an eight-piece song-cycle by 20th-Century English stalwart Benjamin Britten. The man could write a song, for sure: these masterly settings of Thomas Hardy’s poetry turned out to be quite an experience, expressing a huge range of image and emotion. The heart of the cycle lay in ‘The Choirmaster’s Burial’, a tear-jerking retelling of the tender and touching sendoff given a small town’s resident church musician (some of the tears jerked were my own).
Groves has a special way of getting inside of a song’s emotional world and making it his own (OUR own, too). You hardly needed the written texts to follow – his superb diction conveyed every word to us. He produced a vast range of vocal sonorities, from nearly inaudible whispers to clarion outcries … what a voice! Another festival newbie, pianist supreme Pedja Muzijevic, appeared for the first time, supporting Groves with an almost mystical sense of rapport (they’ve worked together before). Watch for more from him as the series continues to unfold.
OH – and here’s your latest Eargasm alert: the major work you’ll hear in tomorrow’s Concert V (kicking off at 1:00 p.m.) will be Beethoven’s seldom-heard Septet in E-Flat, Op. 20 – another big (for chamber) piece that offers an unusual grouping of instruments. Alongside festival regulars on strings and clarinet, you’ll hear horn-meister Eric Ruske and (for the first time) Peter Kolkay: the first star bassoonist to grace the festival in quite awhile.
Stay tuned – there are yet more top-secret musical cherries from this series to be gradually leaked – and the only place you can find ‘em is right here – in Eargasms.
Tuesday’s second Music in Time installment brought us three very different and appealing creations from cutting-edge composers of right NOW. All three items were scored entirely for strings – save for the winsome addition of a lone clarinet in the second number.
Series host (and justly famed composer) John Kennedy kicked things off with Baghdad Variations: his own musical response to one of our ongoing national travails, the war in Iraq. As he told us, his view of the war in an abstract one, as he has no personal stake in it: no soldiers in the family … no friends who came home in body casts or coffins. So, instead of some grisly programmatic war-epic, Kennedy gave us a set of variations on the musical notes corresponding to the letters of BAGHDAD. Where the heck on the diatonic scale is “H,” you ask? Well, like many composers before him, he simply used the h-note from German tablature: we call it b-flat. Attentive ears could pick every one of the notes out (not necessarily in order).
As I intimated, you’d never know that this is war music: there was no real musical violence here; no searing tonal tales of mass death and destruction. The predominant aura was one of infinite, aching sadness: the kind that war always brings, no matter what its causes are or who wins. The ominous opening string glissandos set that mood right away, and not even the subdued pizzicato sections did much to dispel it. The pitiful little “mewing” sounds near the end could’ve been anything from cries of grief to moans of the wounded.
Japanese composer Somei Satoh’s Glimmering Darkness was an entirely different sort of beast. Slow and solemn throughout, it tended to dwell on single notes and sonic textures, and there was no perceptible rhythm. It struck me as a kind of serene, dreamlike meditation on the gleaming wonders of the night. Hearing it was something like visual contemplation of a moonlit Zen garden … at least that’s the kind of pleasant trance that it brought my way. I was sorry when it ended.
And it ended abruptly, with the much more manic (and really hard) music of emerging English composer Steve Martland. His Tiger Dancing was inspired by William Blake’s famous poem (“Tiger, tiger, burning bright”). It seemed to take a sort of perverse delight in the dark side of dancing. If you had to classify it, post-minimalist is the proper term – witness its repetitive, gradually evolving harmonic and rhythmic patterns. It was full of relentless energy and veiled menace, though one whimsical passage towards the end was more like Tigger cavorting with Winnie-the-Pooh (or any cat in a playful mood).
The excellent string players were all — as usual — members of the formidable Spoleto Festival Orchestra – oh, and the dulcet clarinet work in the Satoh piece was courtesy of Sonia Sielaff, also of the SFO. Hey, there are three more terrific programs to come in MIT. So show up with open minds and ears (you can usually get tickets), and give this ever-stimulating series a try.
Last minute adjustments to the piano’s tuning were being administered as I entered New Tabernacle Fourth Baptist Church for this evenings offering by local “supergroup,” Charleston Music Fest. With the tuning properly tweaked, all systems looked green and a palpable air of anticipation covered the audience. While Ellen Dressler Moryl gave a few opening remarks I looked around the church, grateful to see several very young faces in attendance. But I was also a bit dismayed that the church was just a little over three quarters full. When musicians of this caliber gather, magic happens. Magic that is worth seeing, hearing, and supporting. Okay, off my pedestal and on to the show!
Ludwig van Beethoven’sTrio for violin, cello and piano, Op. 1, No. 1, an early work (if you couldn’t already tell…), shows that the young composer had absorbed a great deal from studying the works of Haydn and Mozart. But as the opening Allegro blasts its way into life, one can hear the seed of a much rawer vision, and an earthier majesty. It settles into a playful romp that occasionally lets its exuberance run rampant. Pianist Volodymyr Vynnytsky played up the Mozart connection with great sensitivity, allowing a certain delicacy of touch that created ample breathing room for the sections where Beethoven unleashes more power, as if to let us know that he’s not Mozart. The Adagio cantabile’s sweetly singing melody came from Lee-Chin Siow with just the slightest hint of hesitancy. These musicians know these works so, so intimately, and take such obvious joy in their performance, it was hard to tell if this was a deliberate choice, or if something else was afoot. Beethoven began thumbing his nose at convention by including the Scherzo: Allegro assai, a jocund movement that skips and laughs at the end of each phrase, showing off the dark, warm, and cream-like tone cellist Natalia Khoma effortlessly creates.
A few minutes into the Finale: Presto, an audience member fainted, and our musicians broke off the movement as we waited for EMS to arrive. He walked out of the church with assistance, which I’ll take as a good sign. Our thoughts are with you!
Perhaps it was this intrusion of “life” into the proceedings…a flood of compassion mixed with nervous energy and concern that altered everyone’s focus. When our musicians returned to the stage and began the last movement again, everything had changed. A slightly quicker pace underscored the nervous energy and deepened the longing during less driving sections of the movement. Any marginal hesitancy I might have noticed before had been replaced by a growing sense of purpose that called forth our musician’s “A” game. With stars.
Tchaikovsky’sFour Seasons came next. With their hearts on their sleeves (how else can one play Tchaikovsky?), they dove into Snowdrop, tossing the melody throughout the trio with darkly superb assurance. Harvest ranged from a boisterous sprint to an easy roll that showcased not only Lee-Chin Siow at her finest, but also the perfection of communication between all three musicians. Natalia Khoma responded in kind during Autumn Song, enveloping the audience with a viscous warmth of tone, pure in its Romanticism. Christmas danced a happy waltz, leaving me wanting trio arrangements of all twelve months.
By the end of Four Seasons, it was clear our trio knew something special was happening, and boy, were they having fun! The opening scrapes and complex rhythm of Ástor Piazzolla’sVerano Porteno set flight a flurry of sensual delights, daring one not to be moved. The closing number, Lost Tango, for violin, cello and piano, written by Mr. Vynnytsky, was astonishing! It’s complexity was balanced by a sure clarity of purpose, and the melody was utterly thrilling. Ending the show with such a bang proved cathartic, and the audience leaped to their feet. A marvelous experience! And I hope the gentleman who fainted feels better very soon.
I spoke with Ellen Dressler Moryl this evening after the Charleston Music Fest’s concert. You’ll have to wait until I’ve had a bite to eat for their review, but I did want to let everyone know that Marina Lomazov’s injury should not threaten her playing in the future. Her collar bone has been broken, so she will be out for about six weeks. Here’s to a speedy recovery for a musician who will be dearly missed!
While listening to Marcus Overton’s Spoleto Today interview with Ellen Dressler Moryl this morning, I learned a bit of sad news. Marina Lomazov has been involved in a freak accident and will be unable to perform. We wish her a speedy recovery and return to performance. But fear not! The program will go on as scheduled. Piccolo stalwart Andrew Armstrong has the Shostakovich in his repertoire, and will fill in for her.
The Imani Winds – By Themselves
Lucky Lindsay: I got to hear the terrific Imani Winds – not just once, but twice. Thursday’s third Music in Time program was devoted entirely to them – and I was part of their absolutely enchanted Simmons Recital Hall audience. It was quite a different experience, compared to their big gig at the Gaillard the night before – where they And the (very noisy) Spoleto Festival Orchestra blew us all away with their brilliant traversal of David Newman’s big Concerto for Winds … you can read all about it right HERE.
But Thurdsay, they did their more everyday thing: performing as the polished and exuberant chamber ensemble that they are. As series host John Kennedy told us, this Grammy-nominated, all-African-American quintet has done for the classical wind quintet what the revered Kronos Quartet did for the string quartet. Though classically grounded, they – like the Kronos folks – concentrate on the chamber music of today: performing modern classics and the latest creations from promising contemporary tunesmiths, many of which they commission themselves. Visit their nifty website to find out more (that saves me from listing all their names, too!) – or if you’d care to support their ongoing efforts to enrich the wind quintet repertoire.
They kicked things off with a promising pair of fairly short works composed by their own gifted members. Titilayo (meaning “eternal joy”) – by French horn whiz Jeff Scott – was built on catchy snippets of roots music, in an overall context of manic momentum and perky pizzazz. Then we heard fab flutist Valerie Coleman’s Portraits of Josephine: a four-movement suite commemorating the legendary Josephine Baker, whose hundredth birthday comes up this year. It’s a series of musical “snapshots” of her varied life – from her early years in St. Louis to her glory years in France, where (among other things) she tried to establish sort of a “rainbow utopia” at her Les Milandes castle. The music was engaging and evocative – especially the bluesy musings of the St. Louis section.
Next on the menu was Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet, by Hungarian marvel György Ligeti: one of the giants of the late 20th Century. These mostly very short pieces (some well under a minute) explore all the varied sounds, effects and tone-colors that a woodwind quintet is capable of. We heard everything: grumbling low textures, collective squawks (and what sounded like sneezes), tense dissonances, twittering cacophony, in-your-face tonal “splats,” etc. We even got to experience the phenomenon of “ghost tones” – a creepy overtone effect that’s produced when the various woodwinds play high notes in a certain way. I could’ve sworn that there was a faint clarinet somewhere behind me.
The next number — Terra Incognita – was commissioned from Jazz giant Wayne Shorter: a number that the composer later told them they could play as freely as they wanted to — (like ignore the bar lines and meters). That probably means an invitation to improvise — and it sounded like that’s just what they did. I bet it never sounds the same twice. It was brainy, hip, and oh-so spontaneous. I loved it.
They finished up with the evening’s best-known piece: Argentinian composer Astor Piazzola’s Libertango, as arranged for wind quintet. As in most of his work, this music explores the outer limits of the tango: the languorous dance music of his native Buenos Aires. It gave us sultry Latino strains, but elevated to classical complexity. It’s always a treat, but this bunch made it sound extra-special.
If you weren’t there … I’m sorry.