Louis Pelosi presents Louis Pelosi: New Works in Review
Performers: Sophia Steger, violin; Andrew Samarasekara, violin; Kayla Cabrera, viola; Jenny Bahk, cello; Dylan Reckner, bass; Sharon Chang, piano; Mateusz Borowiak
Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center, New York, NY
Sunday, April 24, 2022 6:30 PM
I told a friend that I was attending a concert of works by Louis Pelosi, an academically trained composer, but one who has made his living for nearly fifty years as a recognized piano technician. The friend asked: “Well, what does he sound like?” To which I replied: “Why, Pelosi of course!” And that about sums it up.
I had the great pleasure five years ago of attending a recital series by Mateusz Borowiak, one of tonight’s excellent soloists, in which he performed the six piano sonatas by Pelosi alongside the major etude groups by Chopin, Debussy, and Rachmaninoff.
In the interim, Louis Pelosi has certainly not been idle. The five works on the program were all receiving their premieres on this occasion. Mr. Pelosi, rather than playing the sometimes frustrating game of seeking prizes, commissions, etc. that contemporary composers go through, has been mostly self-produced.
The program opened with the only non-piano based work: an Elegy for String Orchestra, heard here in a string quintet version. All the hallmarks of Pelosi are present: strong imitative counterpoint, motivic unity, a recognizably personal sound. Is it ‘too soon’ for something dedicated to the ‘victims of COVID-19’? Not for me to say. Why should Barber’s famous Adagio for Strings be the only elegiac morsel trotted out for solemn occasions? Pelosi’s work may be slightly less ‘surface’ attractive in terms of melody- it is indeed more static, but it gets its message across. The composer was kind enough to send me scores to all the works on this concert, greatly appreciated in the case of new or unusual music. The string players were keenly sensitive, though I would like to hear the work in full orchestra, as they weren’t able to rise to the fff climax, thus somewhat shrinking the emotional gambit.
The evening then turned to four large piano groupings, beginning with the Adagio, dedicated to Sharon Chang, who performed it meticulously. Generally Ms. Chang’s pianism was finely attuned to harmonic color, but Mateusz Borowiak’s playing (to be discussed below) just seemed more in tune with Pelosi’s private expressive world, adding little phrasing punctuations, breathing, and refreshed colors, but never exaggerated. As Pelosi states: “What the sensitive ear can follow, so can the mind accept and the soul be moved and enlarged.”
The first half concluded with the Variations in E-flat, a set of 36 transformations of a rather concise theme that doesn’t slavishly proclaim a tonality of E-flat but behaves more like a prismatic commentary on the ‘note’ E-flat. Pelosi’s scores don’t have key signatures per se, but often the ‘topic note’ is indicated at the beginning. All the notes are marked with accidentals or naturals as needed, which makes sight-reading Pelosi a minefield.
Mateusz Borowiak was definitive here. Pelosi’s writing could become overwrought in the wrong hands, I suppose, were it not for his consummate craft, especially his use of canon and fugato textures that never break into full-fledged fugues but do suggest them. In this way, Pelosi helps ‘untutored’ listeners find their way through his rewarding maze, provided that the ear for voicing and polyphony are present in the performer.
After intermission, Sharon Chang returned in the Canti, a set of six pieces whose title indicates their more overtly songlike textures. She performed them beautifully, but in the order 1, 5, 3, 4, 2, and 6, and I imagine she had Pelosi’s permission to do so. However, that did undo a carefully considered tone structure from the composer: B-E (rising fourth)-E-flat (a half-step lower)-A-flat (rising fourth)-G (another half step lower)-and finally C (rising fourth). Nothing in Pelosi’s art is left to chance, so I found it surprising.
Finally Mr. Borowiak returned to end the recital with a commanding rendition of Pelosi’s Twelve Etudes, which take issues of sonority (primarily) as their focus, but in ways that Debussy (even Ligeti) didn’t imagine. With novel titles such as Harmony As Melody, Melody From Harmony, Intrusion—Inclusion, and the like, these challenge the pianist to hear in such sophisticated ways, all the while negotiating some of the most complex keyboard textures.
Pelosi having spent so much time working on pianos, the instrument does seem to reveal its innermost secrets to him. On the other hand, one could say that because one is a brilliant surgeon that one’s lovemaking technique ought to be superior—I’m sure that’s far from universally true.
Lucky for us, we have Louis Pelosi, who has so much to express, succeeds in doing so, and has the best young performer/advocates to share it with us.
