A Splendid Torch – Two Evenings in New York
George Bernard Shaw wrote that “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” Saint Patrick’s Day seems a good time to remember these words of the wise Dubliner, and two age-defying performances in New York this past weekend seemed to support that saying. One was a play at the Cort Theatre with the inimitable Glenda Jackson, age 83, in the title role of Shakespeare’s King Lear, and the other was a cello concert at Symphony Space (the Thalia) by Harry Wimmer, now in his nineties. Both evenings were a mix of the theatrical and the musical, King Lear drawing many musicians to hear the incidental music composed especially for it by Philip Glass (b. 1937), and Harry Wimmer’s program “Laugh a Little” blending his highly celebrated cello playing with related puns, witticisms, and sayings of Shakespeare and others. Both were evenings not to be forgotten.
The King Lear production, currently in previews, is directed by Sam Gold and offers a chance to see the legendary Glenda Jackson in the classically male title role that she brought to the Old Vic in London three years ago, causing quite a stir. That gender-bending issue proved here not to be so focal as much as her age – Glenda Jackson is simply too young (“kidding, not kidding,” as the children say). Seriously, one couldn’t help noticing that Ms. Jackson had clearer delivery and projection than nearly every other actor as she held the audience spellbound. As Lear’s world crumbled, she even seemed physically to shrink, such is her acting power, only to expand enough to hold her dying Cordelia. She inhabits this role three hours a night, seven days a week, and is, as my usually understated guest called her on Friday, “off-the-charts amazing.”
And the music? I had my doubts about adding music of Philip Glass to King Lear, but all doubts were allayed. It was delicately wrought, performed onstage but far in the back by a string quartet and later switching with the scene changes to other corners of the stage. The musicians were violinists Cenovia Cummins and Martin Agee, violist Chris Cardone, and cellist Stephanie Cummins, and they were appropriately unobtrusive with some special lyrical moments. Alternating a distant texture of minor thirds and wavering tritones with episodes of greater intensity (and silence), the music reflected occasionally a hint of Elizabethan spirit, though most of it was in keeping with the hypnotic Glass style most of us know and appreciate; Glass fans coming to focus on this music will have trouble, however, as it had a transparency (no pun intended) that allowed the focus to be elsewhere, as one would hope. The production itself seemed to this reviewer to throw in too many distractions from Shakespeare’s own powerful language, but then it is still in its previews and may likely take on more of the power of its lead.
“All the world’s a stage, and most of us are desperately unrehearsed” said Sean O’Casey, and we have Harry Wimmer to thank for reminding us of the bon mot, one of many choice quips throughout his Saturday evening concert, “Laugh a Little” (including words of Shakespeare, Shaw, Melville, Wilde, Prokofiev, Ogden Nash, Alfred Hitchcock, and Groucho Marx). Of course, his concert could not have been not unrehearsed, as it offered a perfectly seamless flow from a huge range of musical selections to enlightening stories and banter. From the opening Toccata of Frescobaldi (arr. Cassadó) and Albeniz’s Tango with pianist collaborator extraordinaire Eduard Laurel, there was no note without meaning. He closed his first half with Beethoven’s highly challenging Variations on Mozart’s Magic Flute and opened the second half with Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance in a Piatigorsky transcription.
This concert was held in memory of Mr. Wimmer’s wife Shirley Givens, world-renowned violinist and beloved teacher, who passed away last year (and proceeds went to a fellowship in her name for the International Chamber Orchestra of Puerto Rico). Shirley Givens’ many stellar students have included Pamela Frank, Joseph Lin, and David Kim, among others, and one of her special ones, Alexis Walls, was present to join the duo of Laurel and Wimmer in a tender rendition of Grainger’s Colonial Song. Ms. Walls later lit into Kreisler’s Sicilienne and Rigaudon with exceptional virtuosity.
Other offerings included vibrant performances from son Kevin Wimmer, one of the premier Cajun fiddlers in Louisiana, with excellent swing/jazz guitarist Tom Mitchell. Interspersed among musical selections, there were appearances from actor, Robert Raines Martin, who added his jokes and antics to the evening, lest things get too tearful, but tears were inevitable from audience members. The Django Reinhardt piece Tears, with father and son playing, was a heartbreaker. Also deeply moving were cello-piano performances The Swan from the Saint-Saëns Carnival of the Animals and Ernest Bloch’s Prayer, from the Jewish Cycle.
For full disclosure, Harry Wimmer and his late wife happen to have been close friends of my parents, but this reviewer’s musical respect exists apart from that, and though Harry has a very modest demeanor, he has received praise from Pablo Casals and Bruno Walter, among others. A little-known fact is that he performed the premiere of Bartók’s Cello Concerto as part of a New York Concert in 1960 (long before what is usually listed as the premiere by Janos Starker decades later). He has played and taught in illustrious venues all over the world, but for more details one can visit About Harry Wimmer. Whatever the accolades and laurels, there is little that compares to continuing it all as a nonagenarian.
This weekend was a good cure for having been sent quite a few viral videos of toddlers playing Bach – not that those are not perfectly delightful, but these two evenings were a reminder that the more one lives the more one can express. They were testaments to the human spirit and inspirations to behold. As George Bernard Shaw said, “Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch, which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
