Yale School of Music presents Chang Pan, cello and Ronaldo Rolim, piano, in Review

Yale School of Music presents Chang Pan, cello and Ronaldo Rolim, piano, in Review

Yale School of Music presents Chang Pan, cello and Ronaldo Rolim, piano
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall; New York, NY
February 3, 2016

A day of soaking rain in New York could not dampen the ardor of either performers or audience at this very fine recital by an extraordinary artist of the cello and his excellent collaborative pianist. The program consisted of de Falla’s Suite popular Española, the Franck Violin Sonata in A major, and two works by Grieg, the Intermezzo for Cello and Piano in A minor, and the Cello Sonata in A minor, Op. 36.

The principal virtue of Chang Pan’s playing is his extreme absorption in the music; he has a rapt, intense look, as one who is communing directly with the mysterious source “out there” that sustains and inspires true artists—and he possesses the technical ease to bring that inspiration into his instrument and project it to the listener. His bow arm, intonation, and the variety of colors he obtains from the cello are all sublime. He was beautifully partnered by Ronaldo Rolim, who managed every texture, no matter how thick or difficult, with consummate elegance.

The program itself, however, was uneven, with the first half devoted to transcriptions. Yes, I consider the Franck Sonata a transcription, even though the composer himself did somewhat grudgingly accept the transformation for cello which was made in his lifetime, saying it “does not kill the piece.” With so much original cello/piano repertoire, why not program something less often heard? I was very much looking forward to the “Festival Tianshan” which was originally billed, but that was substituted by a Grieg Intermezzo.

Three of the four pieces were in either A major or A minor, and I think artists should carefully consider the way pieces lead into and away from each other, and not fatigue the ear with too much of the same key. Okay, most of the “grumpy old man” portion of the review is out of the way.

The program began well, with six of the seven Canciones populares Españolas of Manuel de Falla, originally for voice and piano. Chang Pan immediately erased any concern about the missing words by playing each with vivid coloration and great spirit. He really made you hear the little allusion to female virginity in the first canción: “the fine cloth in the window won’t sell for much if it gets a spot on it.” Then followed the Franck Sonata, with all its overheated, incense-laden rhetoric and exaltation. I’ve often found in the past that with the necessary octave transpositions in the cello part compared to the violin original that the music doesn’t “speak” where it is intended to, and that with those same transpositions the cello line is buried more in the middle of the piano textures instead of floating over them. I had no reason for concern however, since this duo solved each and every issue forcefully. The daunting piano part was utterly transparent, not a balance problem in sight. The slow movements were notable for their elasticity and aura of spiritual communion. Each phrase and each harmonic contortion was planned meticulously and felt deeply, transitions were also excellent. I did feel that the second movement was too fast, losing some distinction in the rush. But after all, if you can’t be youthfully impetuous when you’re a youth, then when can you be?

After intermission, the pair played an unusual Intermezzo by Grieg, melancholy and lyrical, using it as a sort of slow introduction to the sonata that followed. This sonata should really be given a nickname: “Grieg’s Grab Bag,” for it plunders from his other output shamelessly, with gestures adopted wholesale from the Norwegian folksongs and dances, the lyric pieces, and “that” concerto, coincidentally also in A minor. Even the fantastic skills of these two artists could not disguise what a meretricious assemblage this “sonata” is. It grew tiresome. (Sorry, gentlemen.)

After enthusiastic, well-deserved applause, the duo played a sweet “Chinese Melody” as an encore.

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by Frank Daykin  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY
Key Pianists presents Peter Takács: The Beethoven Experience—Late Beethoven in Review

Key Pianists presents Peter Takács: The Beethoven Experience—Late Beethoven in Review

Key Pianists presents Peter Takács: The Beethoven Experience—Late Beethoven
Peter Takács, piano; Soovin Kim, violin; Virgil Hartinger, tenor
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
January 14, 2016

 

January is only two weeks old and already there is a litany of loss: Pierre Boulez, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, and many more unheralded. Now I must selfishly mourn the end of this satisfying mini-overview of Beethoven’s music provided by master pianist Peter Takács. He brings old-world virtues of golden singing tone, and myriads of shifting colors based on his keen knowledge of every chord and its relative weight and where every phrase is headed. Nothing clinical, cold, or “post-modern perfect” about this pianist, thank goodness. We have enough of that.

Instead, as I have noted previously, we have a soul who has entered deeply into the creative act “beside” Beethoven, as it were. He reveals it freshly every time, risks and all. The sense of struggle was always a key feature not only in Beethoven’s compositional practice, but also in his dealing with life events such as the obvious: deafness, and the subtler: fight for financial security and emotional fulfillment. We shouldn’t want to air-brush that tension away.

It was good of Mr. Takács to begin the concert with Beethoven’s true swan-song for solo piano, the set of six Kleinigkeiten, Op. 126 ( Bagatelles, or “Trifles”). These miniatures, as distinct from his prior two sets (Op. 33 and Op. 119, mainly written and published for money) may be small in length, but they are giant in visionary power. One hears glimmers of many of the late-period processes being tossed about, from hearty stomps to melting lyricism to transcendent spatial insights and echoes across alpine valleys. Mr. Takács observed the con moto indications found in them, to give a more earthy view, less freighted with mysticism than usual.

The yearning for a “lost Arcadia” (as Maynard Solomon points out in his excellent book Late Beethoven: Music, Thought, Imagination) is often symbolized by Beethoven’s use of G major as tonality. We had that in two of the above bagatelles and in the second work on the program: the delightful and underplayed Violin Sonata No. 10 in G major, Op. 96. A product of Beethoven’s Archduke Rudolph “period,” if you will, it switches from the pastoral to the spiritual in the blink of an eye. Violinist Soovin Kim was excellently subtle and poised as a partner, without losing any enthusiasm where it was needed. The two musicians were perfectly aligned in concept and execution. The fourth movement rondo with variations was particularly touching in its disinclination to say “goodbye,” consisting of several attempts at an ending, finally bursting forth in joy.

After intermission, Mr. Takács utilized another collaborative artist, the sweet-voiced lyric tenor Virgil Hartinger, in the innovative song-cycle An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98 (To the Distant Beloved). This was the first interconnected cycle ever, paving the way for subsequent works by Schubert and Schumann. The words were written by Alois Isidor Jeitteles, probably at Beethoven’s request, and are full of the tropes of Romanticism: separation, longing, nature. Can we still identify with these sentiments in an age of Skype, Snapchat, and the rest? I certainly hope so.

“Nimm sie hin denn, diese Lieder,/Die ich dir, Geliebte, sang. . .” (Take you then these songs/Which I sing to you, Beloved) goes the sixth and final song. It proves a fitting motto for what Mr. Takács has been saying to us all fall and winter. Mr. Hartinger grew on me: his demeanor was generally still, which I appreciated—no histrionics—although I did find some issues with diction, legato, and the sudden dynamic shifts required, perhaps just stiffness, for when he got to the fifth and sixth songs, the “money shot,” he was very moving, and provided vivid contrasts and much more emotional involvement.

To conclude, Mr. Takács scaled the Everest of the last piano sonata, Op. 111, in C minor. Claudio Arrau always taught that one should never divide between the hands the treacherous opening double octave for the left hand alone that descends a diminished seventh, that it would minimize the sense of Herculean struggle. Mr. Takács did not divide two of the three, and he missed both of them. Folks, I’m here to tell you, it’s okay. It’s not what happens, it’s how you continue that is the mark of the true artist. In a way, the whole movement was dominated by Mr. Takács’ grappling with some memory issues. However, each time something repeated he nailed it with truly Beethovenian determination. In the Arietta (the second of only two movements) he created the spiritual stillness of the theme gorgeously, and each variation, spun like heavenly weaving out of the one before, worked its magical effect. I am reminded of Alfred Brendel’s note to Op. 111 about the final cadences that withdraw quietly to silence: “a silence that we now perceive to be even more important than the sound which preceded it.”

Thank you, Peter Takács, and may I issue a challenge? That you return soon and often, with the other twenty-seven piano sonatas, all the piano-based instrumental chamber music, and all the variations, miscellaneous pieces, and Lieder. That ought to keep Mr. Takács and New York nourished for quite some time!

 

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by Frank Daykin  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY
SoNoRo Festival Bucharest 10th Anniversary Concert in Review

SoNoRo Festival Bucharest 10th Anniversary Concert in Review

The Romanian Cultural Institute in New York and RA Entertainment present SoNoRo Festival Bucharest 10th Anniversary Concert
Diana Ketler, piano; Alexander Sitkovesky and Daniel Rowland, violins; Razvan Popovici, viola; Julian Arp, cello
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
November 30, 2015

A fervent crowd of Romanians, also celebrating their “National Day” (Dec. 1), was treated to a banquet of late-Romantic works for piano quartet, and one quintet, by the outstanding ensemble players of SoNoRo, based in Bucharest, now in its tenth year. The group was founded to remedy the shortage of knowledge and performance opportunities for fine chamber music in Romania—it has since become an important traveling ambassador. It is formed of a cosmopolitan group of Europe’s outstanding chamber players.

After some sincere speechmaking (a capsule history of Romania, deftly delivered by the consul), the concert began with a rendition of Mahler’s only surviving chamber work, his Piano Quartet in A Minor. Written in his student days (age 16) in one continuous sonata-allegro movement, we “love” the piece anyway, though it doesn’t have the genius of the composer’s world-encompassing symphonies or the profound beauties of his Lieder. The work is indebted mainly to Schumann, but here’s the kicker: in the hands of the SoNoRo players (Diana Ketler, Alexander Sitkovesky, Razvan Popovici, and Julian Arp), who revealed its dark mood with such warm tone, it sounded like a much better piece than it really is.

The pianist for the entire evening was the astonishingly refined and tasteful Diana Ketler, one of the founders of SoNoRo. I have rarely heard such delicacy in the piano part of an ensemble, yet she also rose to occasions of great power easily. Her phrasing was exquisite, and myriad colors were summoned from the often-recalcitrant piano in Weill Hall. The strings were passionate, with full-bodied vibrato, and perfect tuning and ensemble. They indicated both their pleasure in playing and important cues with wonderful visual contact that never veered over into the theatrical. To witness the way each one listened to the others when one of them was not playing was a delight.

After the Mahler, they played Richard Strauss’ only venture into the Piano Quartet repertoire, his Op. 13 in C Minor. Here, unlike in the Mahler, we heard the compositional virtuosity and confidence of the young Strauss, with themes pointing the way to his larger tone-poems and operas in “embryo,” as it were. The Scherzo movement in particular was played with dash and sparkle. The personnel had been changed to a different violinist: Daniel Rowland, who my seat-neighbor said was “very good-looking, like Brad Pitt. That doesn’t hurt!” The work’s four movements brimmed with appropriate longing and were beautifully long-breathed.

 

After intermission came the Dohnányi Piano Quintet No. 2, Op. 26, with all five musicians making a boisterous mini-orchestra. Its first movement theme (in E-flat minor) seems to me like a subconscious transformation of the Fugue in D- sharp minor from Bach’s WTC book 1 (same key enharmonically). The Intermezzo is a sort of deconstructed salon-waltz that keeps interrupting itself. The Finale presents a very sober fugue in the string quartet group, followed by a chorale or hymn in the piano (again channeling Bach). Again, Ms. Ketler here made the most gorgeous legato tones of those long notes. Then the “Bach” theme from the first movement returns for a grand peroration, which renders the work “cyclic.” In the fabulous hands of SoNoRo, I was reminded how original Dohnányi’s music is, and how much better it deserves to be known, apart from a handful of works that are frequently performed.

 

For a rousing closer, they played an arrangement by Austrian composer Thomas Wally of Enescu’s (the sole Romanian composer on the bill) Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A major, Op. 11. A compendium of folk tunes and dances, when it broke into the whirlwind Hora section with which it concludes, the ensemble was on fire figuratively—truly exciting, wild, and fabulous. The audience roared its approval.

 

At the turn of the century (19th/20th), Bucharest was regarded as the “Paris of East-Central Europe,” with sophisticates from the French Paris often traveling there. Enescu himself studied at the Paris Conservatoire, befriending Ravel and performing Ravel’s early Violin and Piano Sonata. It is safe to say that with an ensemble like this, a musical pilgrimage to Bucharest would be well worth one’s time.

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by Frank Daykin  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY
Sung-Soo Cho in Review

Sung-Soo Cho in Review

Sung-Soo Cho, piano
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
November 27, 2015

If only people flocked to recitals the way they throng the retail outlets on “Black Friday,” they would have been treated to an exceptional young artist of great promise. Sung-Soo Cho looks all of age twelve, but he is probably double that, considering that he is pursuing a doctorate and also teaching at the college level.

The entire recital was extremely well-prepared and played, with abundant mechanical gifts fully displayed in a wide-ranging program (Haydn to 21st century). But technique wasn’t the whole story: Mr. Cho manages to phrase very musically, and definitely has an “ear” for refined piano color and a wide tonal palette. I could only have wished that some of the program had been a bit less controlled, that he had conjured up the sense that he was communing with the instrument and the music more spontaneously—a place he did arrive by the end of the program.

Mr. Cho’s specialty, according to his bio, is contemporary American piano music. Indeed, the finest performance of the evening was his mesmerizing rendition of John Corigliano’s Fantasia on an Ostinato, which refers, through layers of texture, to the Allegretto movement from Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. In this work, which Mr. Cho made sound much better than it really is, his coloration and sense of organization and drama were superb. The work is indebted to the “minimalist” movement for much of its gesture, but it is a language that Corigliano speaks somewhat “maximally.” Here Mr. Cho was in perfect union with the composition and the piano.

Mr. Cho also brought a beautiful sense of “space” to the Distance of the Moon (a New York premiere) by Michael Ippolito (a student of Corigliano).

Haydn’s Sonata in B Minor, Hob. XVI: 32, which began the recital, was played with great flair and crisp articulation, though in a work so compact I missed the repetitions of the expositions (and possibly even the recaps) in the first and third movements. Let us not treat Haydn as a mere appetizer.

Mr. Cho showed a marked sensitivity to the subtlety of so-called Impressionist French repertoire, playing three Debussy Préludes from Book II with perfect sonority. Les fées sont d’exquises danseuses, in particular, featured “exquisite dancing” of nimble, delicate fingers over the keys.

Before intermission, Mr. Cho barnstormed his way through Liszt’s concert “paraphrase” of Verdi’s Rigoletto. He managed its fierce business with great musicality, perhaps the only thing missing would have been a slightly “grander” air about the whole—surely that will come as he matures.

The final work on the program was Brahms’ compendium of pianistic difficulties: the Paganini Variations, Op. 35, played in its entirety. Here I really felt that Mr. Cho let go and showed us more of himself. He varied the voicing and color of each repeat wonderfully, and at the same time managed to make the piece sound “easy.”

All in all, a successful debut. Just a note, as anyone who reads my reviews regularly knows: If you are giving a recital in a major New York hall (or really anywhere), it is NOT ACCEPTABLE to have no program notes, especially when there are unusual works or premieres on the program.

Mr. Cho favored the audience with a fun encore: A Gliss Is Just a Gliss by David Rakowski.

 

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by Frank Daykin  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY
Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY) presents The Music of Dinos Constantinides in Review

Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY) presents The Music of Dinos Constantinides in Review

Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY) presents The Music of Dinos ConstantinidesIn Homage to the University of Macedonia – Greece
Yova Milanova and Dimitris Chandrakis, violin; Michael Gurt and Maria Asteriadou, piano; Athanasios Zervas, saxophone; Dimitris Patras, cello
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall; New York, NY
November 20, 2015

 

The music of Dinos Constantinides is so well-crafted that it is easy to forget the sophistication behind it. A generous helping of his chamber music was offered, played by numerous musicians of Greek descent. On this evening, the performers were uniformly excellent, which afforded the reviewer the opportunity to focus on the (mostly) merits of the music, confident that it was receiving the best possible rendition, both in terms of technical achievement and emotional commitment.

I see by this program that Mr. Constantinides has a catalogue system now, the “LRC” numbers. I’m assuming that the early numbers represent the earliest compositions. These, notably the Piano Trio No. 1 and the Sonata for Violin and Piano, both heard here, are in the astringent “12-tone” style that composers “had” to adopt in order to be taken seriously by academia back in the post-WWII climate until about 30 years ago. Luckily, such restrictions are a thing of the past, and Mr. Constantinides’ style is more poignant and expansive when he uses folk or folk-inspired material from his homeland.

However, in both the Sonata and Trio, Mr. Constantinides uses the “tone row” in a very “romantic” way, full of yearning lines and often beautiful sonorities. He also builds arch or three-part forms that are easily graspable by the ear. Sometimes the gesture is more important than the notes of which it is composed.

For me, the standouts of the evening were two. First, the Fantasia for Stelios and Yiannis, a duo for violin and cello. It had a sombre, elegiac quality, doubtless inspired by the homesickness for friends from his school days who have passed away. It was lovingly rendered by Dimitris Chandrakis and Dimitris Patras.

Second, the China IV—Shenzhen, Concerto for Cello and Piano. This long-titled work was beautifully played by Mr. Patras and the vivid (sometimes too loud) pianist Maria Asteriadou. A cadenza-like section played by cello alone with pizzicato notes and sustained legato simultaneously was gorgeous. It did indeed behave like a concerto and not a sonata for cello and piano. This is an interesting genre to add to the possibilities of the chamber music repertoire; and I wouldn’t mind hearing the piano part orchestrated. Mr. Constantinides is a great re-fashioner of his own works.

I always like to ask myself with regard to programmatic music: If some future musicologists were to find the manuscripts with the titles cut off, would the music be appreciable on its own? In terms of China IV, the answer is a resounding yes, although if I hadn’t seen the title, I would have had absolutely no image of a modern Chinese city. The same was true of the dazzling Celestial Musings for alto saxophone solo. It was brilliantly played by Athanasios Zervas, but musically there was really no recognizable symbolization of earth, air, fire, and water, except to take the composer’s own sincere note.

The presence of solo saxophone in a concert of chamber music is unusual. Played with such versatile virtuosity as it was here, it would be a welcome added resource, to be heard more often. The Recollections for solo saxophone was lively, involving hearty foot-stomping.

Ensemble was absolutely excellent between Yova Milanova and Michael Gurt in the Landscape V for violin and piano and the Sonata for violin and piano. Cellist Patras was passionate in the Ballade for the Hellenic Land for solo cello. The tiny Dialogue for violin and cello was wittily and deftly dispatched by Mr. Chandrakis and Mr. Patras. Only the Impressions II for alto saxophone and piano seemed a bit “dramatic” (as was noted by the New York Times some years back), I’d have to say a bit overly so, almost wild, and perhaps just a bit overblown. It broke into a sort of humorous “drunken” waltz twice, a tone that struck me as inappropriate in light of what had been established. Perhaps I’m just not on Mr. Constantinides’ wavelength here.

All in all, a distinguished concert indeed. I’m certain Mr. Constantinides’ composition students are very fortunate to have such humane guidance from a musician who obviously has a lot of heart. He took the stage humbly at the end, visually a sort of cross between an elf and Santa Claus, and remained mostly with his back to the audience, thanking his wonderful performers for bringing his visions to life.

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by Frank Daykin  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY
Key Pianists presents Peter Takács: The Beethoven Experience—Middle Beethoven in Review

Key Pianists presents Peter Takács: The Beethoven Experience—Middle Beethoven in Review

Key Pianists presents Peter Takács: The Beethoven Experience—Middle Beethoven
Peter Takács, Piano
Guest artist: Robert deMaine, Cello
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
November 12, 2015

 

Peter Takács continued his admirable Beethoven series, this time focusing on works of the “middle period,” during which Beethoven swore to “take a new way.” Indeed he did, the works are much larger, exploratory, reveling in virtuosic figures and lyrical profundity, interrupted by mysterious keyboard recitatives.

The great thing about this evening was its palpable feeling of lived experience through the music, and passion. Mr. Takács sweeps away any sense of routine or intellectual concept (driven by the past thirty-some years of so-called historically informed performance practice). We aren’t thinking about metronome speeds or nit-picky articulation with Mr. Takács, only emotional meaning. Every single note, even in the brutally rapid passage work, sings. His demeanor at the keyboard is very quiet, economical, never showy or grandstanding.

He opened with the middle sonata of the three from Op. 31, nicknamed the Tempest, supposedly because Beethoven, always annoyed at being asked what his pieces “meant,” growled: “Oh, go read Shakespeare’s Tempest!” No matter, the work was revealed as a romantic struggle of opposites, mysterious sonorities and pleading melodies. Played with more elasticity than customary, Mr. Takács took his own “new way” convincingly.

He was then joined by the excellent cellist Robert deMaine (principal cellist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic) for a transcendent reading of the Cello Sonata No. 3 in A major, Op. 69. Both players shared the same approach, with Mr. deMaine’s passionate expansion mirrored in Takác’s finely detailed partnering. The short introduction to the finale was tear-inducing. The pair also brought out the weirdly obsessive qualities inherent in some of Beethoven’s writing in this, the latest composed of the works on this program.

After intermission, Mr. Takács insisted on playing the Andante favori, WoO 57, (originally intended as the slow movement to the Op. 53 Waldstein sonata) before the actual Waldstein, without interruption. It was an interesting idea, beautifully executed, although since Beethoven actually thought better and removed it from the sonata, I felt it was almost “too much,” especially to hear it before the immense sonata itself. In the Andante, Mr. Takács created a wonderful sense of spatial atmosphere, as though music were being heard across a mountain valley, especially in the poignant coda.

We may now say that Mr. Takács has “climbed K2” after this performance of the Waldstein, and when he completes this series in January with Op. 111, he can be said to have “conquered Everest.” His Waldstein was played with visceral excitement. The phrasing in the Rondo finale was particularly gorgeous. His solutions to the nightmarish glissando octaves in the same finale were ingenious and incredibly soft. All-in-all, a wonderfully lived performance of a touchstone that can all too often just sort of “go by” in the hands of other pianists.

As an encore, he favored his large enthusiastic audience with the Menuetto from the Piano Sonata No. 18 in E-flat major, Op. 31, No. 3 (The Hunt). You have one more chance to hear this artist, with “late” Beethoven, in January. Don’t miss it!

 

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by Frank Daykin  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY
The Olympus Piano Trio In Review

The Olympus Piano Trio In Review

The Hellenic-American Cultural Foundation and the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation (USA) present The Olympus Piano Trio
Regi Papa, violin; Ben Capps, cello; Konstantine Valianatos, piano
Merkin Concert Hall, Kaufman Arts Center, New York, NY
November 5, 2015

These Greeks definitely bear gifts, and they’re not Trojan horses. They are the gifts of immense musical talent, coupled with the fearless technique of youth, and passionate commitment to every note they play. Also, the two foundations that presented the event gave New Yorkers another gift: an absolutely free, no tickets required event.

The Olympus Trio, as a whole, created an incredibly velvety tone at all times, scrupulously balanced (sometimes overly so), with unanimity of phrasing. I especially enjoyed the cellist Ben Capps’ expressive left-hand vibrato and his facial involvement: too often the cellist is in the “thankless” role in a trio. The violinist Regi Papa was less demonstrative, but there was much finesse in his understanding of how to expand a phrase, and in his beautiful sound.

The concert began with a ravishing performance of Rachmaninoff’s Trio élégiaque No.1 in G minor (1892), less often heard than the second one (Op. 9). It was composed in four days, and certainly this shows in the overwhelming preponderance of the piano part, but none of this was apparent from the gorgeous reading given by the Olympians. It emerged from “nothing,” just as Rachmaninoff intended, and progressed to its big climaxes elegantly. The coda’s funeral march was particularly haunting.

Next came a Mount Olympus of a different sort: Ravel’s Piano Trio. Here I had high expectations, and I would have to say that this was a “good” performance, but if the group is still together in ten years, it has the potential to become a “great” performance. The sins were mainly those of youth, and I do apologize for nit-picking. The first movement was far too “gooey,” although it is marked (unusually for Ravel) with numerous tempo changes, the players added too much un-French expressive rubato. The excellent pianist Konstantine Valiantos has a distressing habit of playing with his hands not together (I don’t mean where Ravel has so notated, but elsewhere): this may be allowed, perhaps, ONCE per entire concert, but not so often as here, it’s a careless mannerism. Also, Mr. Valianatos was so careful in his balances that there was often not enough piano (!), which is usually not the issue in this piece. He played a misprint that I have spent a lifetime trying to get people to correct (just because the Beaux-Arts Trio recorded it that way doesn’t make it true): the final note in the first movement piano part (right hand) is an E and G in BASS clef, please.

The second movement, Pantoum, was taken at an appropriate, breakneck tempo, with excitement, despite almost derailing the pianist a couple of times. That he did not get flustered at all is to his credit—so scary is this movement. The Passacaille third movement had the right mood, but oddly here Mr. Valianatos played his opening eight measures too loudly and with intrusive, fussy phrasing, thus ruining the “emergence from darkness.” The two strings’ haunting duo between rehearsal numbers 8 and 9 (Durand edition) was perfection. The Finale was robust, with the piano finally asserting itself fully.

After Intermission, the Trio played the New York premiere of an excerpt from a longer multi-media work called “Constantinople” by contemporary Greek-Canadian composer Christos Hatzis. They played “Odd World,” which was a good play on words, as the folk materials whizzed by in quintuplet meters, and other asymmetrical folk-inspired divisions. It was very accessible, and pleased the large crowd greatly.

Finally, they turned their talents and attentions to another pillar of the repertoire: Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 66. It was finely phrased, and the quick movements were marvels of clarity. The desynchronization of the pianist’s hands reached epic proportions here (second movement), and it detracted from my total enjoyment, as I began wondering when it would happen next. The pianissimi, which are rarely observed, were perfect. At the fff statement of the “Doxology” hymn in the last movement, Mr. Valianatos truly broke free, honoring the dynamic with his biggest sound of the evening; I imagine he felt that since no one else was playing he could indulge, for he returned to his deferential style immediately after.

When a group is this good, they deserve to grow and become even better. I hope they will be encouraged, for they obviously give audiences a great deal of pleasure with their music.

 

 

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by Frank Daykin  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY
Adrienne Haan – Tehorah in Review

Adrienne Haan – Tehorah in Review

Adrienne Haan – Tehorah
Adrienne Haan, Chanteuse
Heinz-Walter Florin, Piano
Netanel Draiblate and Perry Tal, Violin
Shmuel Katz, Viola
Yoni Draiblate, Cello
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
October 29, 2015

 

Chanteuse Adrienne Haan gave New York another display of her abundant flair for the vintage cabaret material of Weimar-era Germany in Berlin, this time interleaved with songs in Hebrew and Yiddish. (She also sang in English and French). The title of the concert was Tehorah, the Hebrew word for pure. The evening marked the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of German-Israeli diplomatic relations, which she explained began on May 12, 1965, twenty years and a few days after V-E day.

 The audience was full of diplomatic dignitaries from Germany and Israel, and devotees of Hebrew and Yiddish popular song. Dr. Ruth Westheimer (the media personality “Dr. Ruth”) was even present.

Ms. Haan did not disappoint. I heard her “Rock le Cabaret” earlier this year, and many of the same qualities were present, this time in quieter, excellent arrangements by her pianist/music director, Heinz-Walter Florin (of German nationality), and the Israeli string quartet listed above—musical diplomacy mirroring the international kind. I especially enjoyed the interplay between the two Draiblates: Netanel on violin, and Yoni on cello. I hope I am not incorrectly assuming that they may be siblings—the program did not specify—but their fully involved playing and visual communication lent chamber-music quality to an evening of essentially “lighter” music.

Ms. Haan explained that the concert’s message was one of “love and peace,” two areas in which her personality succeeds in matching the content. She performs this style of music with perfect diction in every language, and without the sometimes sour cynicism of, say, Ute Lemper, whose repertoire Ms. Haan shares. I only wish that Ms. Haan had dug into some of the more bitter colorations possible in the German material, even the seemingly funny patter songs. She did achieve this in what, for me, was the highlight of the evening, her performance of Brecht/Weill’s Seeräuber Jenny (Pirate Jenny). Her snarl and growl were absolutely perfect.

Ms. Haan brought amazing variety to the many verses of the strophic songs, through subtle, tasteful shifts of stance or use of hands, and her face is marvelously responsive, even when she isn’t singing. Alles schwindel (Everybody swindles) from 1931 provided a suitably wry introduction to the evening, but it came off as “merely” a comic song, instead of a knowing indictment. Her rendition of Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuss eingestellt, better known to us as “Falling in Love Again,” was a “lighter” one, wholesome rather than wearily decadent. It didn’t suggest the conflict between wanting and “not” wanting, but was very well-sung, as was the entire program.

A defiant look at ambiguous sexualities called The Lavender Song: Masculinum/Femininum (1920) was dispatched rapidly, yet with crystal clarity and great humor. The composer, Misha Spoliansky, originally published it under the pseudonym Arno Billing, so dangerous was its content.

In the songs in Hebrew and Yiddish, Ms. Haan tapped into a unique reserve of mellow longing and wistful sadness that suited the minor-key lyricism of, for instance, the contemporary Israeli folk-singer Chava Alberstein’s The Exclusive Garden and I Stand Beneath a Carob Tree.

Ms. Haan’s informative yet concise patter between songs taught the audience that the poet of the well-known Lili Marleen was a World War I veteran, and that it was set to music only in 1937, on the verge of the next conflagration.

The evening can certainly be counted a success, because of Ms. Haan’s impeccable taste and her good-natured stage presence. The audience ate up every tune—some of my nearby seatmates were even humming along; and she performs a crucial, dare I say, “educational” role in preserving this music for new generations. However, since her role models (Lemper, Dietrich, et al) in the repertoire are so iconic, I trust she will continue to deepen the layers of characterization in her portrayals—there was a top hat and a feather boa on her prop table that, alas, were never utilized. Auf wiedersehn! Lehit-ra-ot! Zay gezunt!

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by Frank Daykin  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY
Key Pianists presents Peter Takács :The Beethoven Experience—Early Beethoven in Review

Key Pianists presents Peter Takács :The Beethoven Experience—Early Beethoven in Review

Key Pianists presents Peter Takács:The Beethoven Experience—Early Beethoven
Peter Takács, piano
Guest artists: Boris Allakhverdyan, Clarinet; Carter Brey, Cello
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
October 18, 2015

I was irreverently suggesting prior to this concert that at this point Beethoven needs no publicity. His devoted performers and listeners do, however, need repeated exposure to these testaments of creativity, which continue to speak and sing no matter how well we think we know them. One of the pleasures of hearing such iconic material is that one can focus in much more detailed fashion on the performance and performer(s).

Beethoven is in extremely fine hands with the esteemed Romanian-born pianist, Peter Takács. His playing overall was full of satisfying risk-taking. He did what is all too rare nowadays: he gave the sensation that he was creating the music “on the spot.” The music breathed where it needed to breathe, bombast was appropriately bombastic, lyrical lines sang, and the whole demonstrated passionate commitment. His ability to change emotional character as quickly as the musical figures changed made the program spring to vivid life.

The very first solo piano sonata given an opus number (Op. 2, No. 1 in F minor) made a fitting opening to this concert (and the first of a three-part series). Mr. Takács’ tone was miraculously transparent on the nine-foot modern Steinway, even at times evoking the more slender tones of instruments Beethoven may have known (and which he always found insufficient). The Adagio, that first of Beethoven’s essays in “humanitäts-Melodie,” was taken a tad faster than I am used to, but to great effect. Its last two chords were magical, not perfunctory.

Mr. Takács was then joined by Boris Allakhverdyan and Carter Brey for the diverting Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano, Op. 11. I take issue with only one of Mr. Takács good program notes here, for he states that B-flat major was a key used by Beethoven to signify light-heartedness. I don’t think the “Archduke” trio or the “Hammerklavier” sonata would be mistaken for light-hearted, but no matter. The afternoon became truly thrilling with this performance. Mr. Allakhverdyan and Mr. Brey are well-known to New Yorkers through their fine contributions to the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic respectively. They played as though they had been a fully formed ensemble for years, teasing out every nugget of chamber music gold, with easeful runs and great good humor, particularly in the rousing Finale, based on a popular comic-opera tune that truly is the anthem of every starving artist “Before I work, I must have something to eat.” Beethoven must surely have had a hearty laugh about the reference. mr. Takács enjoyed the impish turn to G Major near the end, a remote key here, and you could see the playful quality on his face.

After intermission, Mr. Takács favored the audience with the two “sides” of C, minor and major, represented respectively by the famous “Pathétique” sonata Op. 13 and then the final sonata of Op. 2: No. 3. In the Adagio of Op. 13, there was an old-fashioned desynchronization of the hands, which I did not find disturbing for once. This may actually have a lot more to do with a “historically informed” performance practice that we would rather gloss over in our “intellectual” age. Don’t rush out to do this, everyone: let’s just allow Mr. Takács to do it. He also found meltingly sentimental colors in this same movement, where many pianists just “pass over” it. Mr. Takács actually improvised a cadenza in the last movement’s rondo, before the reappearance of the theme, rather than just “sit there” on the fermata. Bravo!

The C major sonata, more like a concerto without orchestra, was brilliant and full of bold contrasts, especially in the unusually “big” slow movement. He arpeggiated large left-hand chords unapologetically, especially in the development section, a smart solution to the problem every pianist faces about too-massive sonority. His passagework and trills in the finale were marvelous and clear. It seems churlish even to mention passagework when one has been given such a gift.

There is an internet meme circulating for some time now about something Beethoven supposedly said to his student Czerny: “Anyone can play a wrong note sometimes, but to play without passion is inexcusable.” Beethoven would have been proud of this performance.

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by Frank Daykin  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY
The Ullmann Project-I in Review

The Ullmann Project-I in Review

The Ullmann Project-I
Dominique Hellsten, artistic director, soprano
Monica Niemi, soprano
Jason Plourde, Will Robinson, baritones
Craig Ketter, Matthew Odell, pianists
Paul Griffiths, musicologist, pre-concert speaker
Merkin Concert Hall, Kaufman Music Center, New York, NY
October 15, 2015

 

The Lieder (German art-song) recital is an endangered species. It depends on the enthusiasms of a small, hardy band of devotees: presenters, performers, and audiences. Happily, many of these devoted folk still exist, and they find each other somehow. That devotion was evident in this first concert (of three planned) of the Ullmann Project.

This recital was preceded by an intimate, informative talk by veteran critic Paul Griffiths, who neatly covered Ullmann’s biographical highlights with admirable coherence and concision. It’s a shame that only a handful of people chose to attend this crucial background informational talk.

Viktor Ullmann (1898-1944) was one (unfortunately among many) of the creative artists to lose his life from the genocidal aktions of the Nazis during WWII. Ullmann’s parents were Jewish, but converted to Catholicism. Ullmann later converted from that to Protestantism, and then to his most meaningful attachment: Anthroposophy. Nevertheless, in the Nazi scheme of things, having Jewish parents (even just one), converted or not, was a one-way ticket to the extermination camps.

Ullmann was first transported to the infamous Terezín (which the Germans called Theresienstadt) “show-camp,” where the Germans used to parade through visiting humanitarian groups such as the Red Cross, as if to say “See? Look how WELL we treat our prisoners,” an irony that is as chilling now as ever. Theatricals, music, painting, all took place within the barbed-wire walls of the camp, supervised by the watchful eyes of the Nazi guards and officials, always on the lookout for subversive messages perhaps sneaked into the works. But who would such messages ever have reached anyway? In the late, defeatist days of the regime, Ullmann was moved to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he perished October 18, 1944.

My task as critic is 1) to evaluate the performances and 2) perhaps render some sort of comment on the material itself. The performances were uniformly committed, and in some cases very stylish. I’d venture to say (with due respect for Ullmann’s quite original “kaleidoscopic” compositional style) that perhaps some of the gems would have been better set off in a more varied program (whether language, or style-period), for there was quite a bit of sameness within the late-Romantic language(s) employed by the four composers on the program. I understand the desire, however, to contextualize Ullmann: mission accomplished.

The program began with six Lieder to poems by Albert Steffens. Steffens was an interesting figure who took over the Anthroposophic Society after the death of its founder Rudolf Steiner. As explained by Dominique Hellsten, Ullmann was insistent that his poets have some sort of “moral” core or sensibility. In these songs, soprano Monica Niemi sang with a clear bright sound, negotiating the often difficult wide-ranging vocal lines well, but with a diction that, while it may have been academically correct, sounded indistinct even in the smallish hall. These songs, as with most of them on this program, strain at the outer bounds of what might be considered true “Lieder” style, verging on an operatic mode of expression, not that that’s always bad (witness the songs of Richard Strauss).

Craig Ketter, her collaborative pianist, produced some of the most satisfying sounds I have heard in decades from a vocal accompanist. In fact, both pianists in the evening were superb, the other being Matthew Odell. Their lavish colorings and total mastery of the often-thick piano writing were marvels to behold.

Ms. Niemi continued with Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s “Farewell Songs,” which contain a translation of Christina Rossetti’s “When I Am Dead, My Dear.” Korngold, a child prodigy, wound up in Hollywood, where he found his true calling as a master creator of film music. The ripe harmonic language sounded a bit overdone here, my limitation I’m sure.

Then came two of the five songs by Alexander Zemlinsky (Arnold Schoenberg’s and Korngold’s teacher) to poems by Richard Dehmel (the poet of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht). Will Robinson, baritone, accompanied by Mr. Odell, had fewer of the diction issues, but both he and Ms. Niemi could have benefitted from a greater variety of expression, less “seriousness” in the face, and more frontal placement of vowels for clarity.

Mr. Robinson continued with the six songs to Rilke poems by Petr Eben, who died only recently, in 2007. This was a very interesting group musically, and it was well done by both Robinson and Odell.

After intermission, things heated up with the Tanzlied of Pierrot from Korngold’s well-known opera Die Tote Stadt (The Dead City), composed when he was twenty-three. Jason Plourde, baritone, had a lovely warm sonority that suited the material, and the best diction thus far of the evening. My only quibble was a peculiarity of his rendering of the “motto” of the aria, the four words “Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen,” which lacked nostalgia, and resolution of the final, unaccented syllables of “Sehnen” and “Wähnen,” where the vowel was far too open.

Mr. Plourde followed with three more songs by Ullmann, to texts by Swiss poet and historian of the Italian medieval and renaissance periods Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, that were vividly characterized.

If I appear to be dwelling on diction, it is because it really is of the essence to the art of the song recital. Not that we ever want to suffer from “diction-face,” but there is a subtle art of creating the proper aural illusions that will reach the audience and create the result of a good rendering of the text, together with beautiful vocalization. It should never be just one “or” the other.

And so, we come to the motivating force behind this Ullmann Project: soprano Dominique Hellsten. She sang eleven songs to conclude the program: six by Zemlinsky and five by Ullmann. In Ms. Hellsten, we found exactly that quality of expression that had been only partially realized previously in the recital: a true idiomatic command of the German language not separated from her singing. Even when her voice was perhaps straining at some of the demands being put upon it by the material, we never doubted her conviction, and she had the most relaxed posture and wide range of expression. She explained, in a brief verbal program note, how much the Ullmann songs to Ricarda Huch’s poems mean to her, ever since she discovered them in London some years ago. She brought that deep understanding that comes from having lived with the material, and again Craig Ketter worked magic with the very busy piano parts, with never a chord out of place or unbalanced.

As Ullmann himself said: “By no means did we sit weeping on the banks of the waters of Babylon. Our endeavor with respect to arts was commensurate with our will to live.” We look forward to the second and third installments of this series.

 

 

 

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by Frank Daykin  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY