New York Philharmonic

New York Philharmonic
Alan Gilbert, conductor
Lisa Batiashvili, violin
Avery Fisher Hall, New York, NY
June 12, 2010
Alan Gilbert

Alan Gilbert

This concert was the first of three to be conducted by Alan Gilbert this month to conclude his opening season as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic. His adventurous, imaginative programming has brought us more contemporary works than have been heard here for many years. One of the most prominently featured composers was Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958) from Finland, whom Gilbert installed as the Philharmonic’s Composer-in-Residence. Indeed, the current season opened with one of Lindberg’s works, EXPO, and this program began with the Philharmonic premiere of another, Arena for Orchestra. Commissioned to write the required test work for the first Sibelius Conductors’ Competition in 1995, Lindberg deliberately made it an obstacle course for the conductor, with frequent tempo and meter changes and drastic textural and dynamic contrasts. Scored for an enormous orchestra whose percussion section uses every known and some unknown instruments, it begins in a sonic haze, but soon erupts into brass fanfares; occasionally something resembling a melody tries to emerge, but is immediately driven away by the next outburst of brass and percussion. Gilbert has performed the work many times and conducted it with confidence and authority; the Philharmonic negotiated all the hurdles with admirable aplomb. The composer was present to share the applause.

The program’s soloist was the phenomenal young Georgian violinist, Lisa Batiashvili, in the Sibelius Concerto. It has become her signature piece since, aged 16, she won second prize as the youngest-ever competitor at the 1995 Sibelius Competition. After that, her career on stage and recording became meteoric, and no wonder. She has the flair of a virtuoso without the flourishes and mannerisms. Her technique is dazzling, but she never calls attention to it, making the most hair-raising fireworks seem as easy as breathing, blithely taking risks with supreme confidence. Her tone, enhanced by a famous Stradivarius violin, is gorgeous, capable of infinite variations of color, nuance and intensity. Best of all, her playing is expressive but never exaggerated or fussy, and her stage presence, too, is simple and natural. From the Concerto’s icy, misty beginning, the stormy climaxes built up organically; the slow movement was all inward tenderness, the Finale all driving, rocking energy. 

Lisa Batiashvili

Lisa Batiashvili

The program ended with Brahms’ Second Symphony in a lovely performance that balanced dignity with exuberance, warmth with austerity, repose with excitement. The orchestra played splendidly.  

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by Edith Eisler  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

The European String Quartet Tradition in America:The Henschel, Kuss, Orion and American in Performance

June, 2010; New York, NY
The American String Quartet

The American String Quartet

Central Europe has always been regarded as the cradle of the classical chamber music performance tradition. Its basic elements were inner involvement, outward restraint, respect for the composer’s style and intentions, and observance of the letter and spirit of the score. In America, the seeds of such a tradition were planted comparatively recently, but flowered in a dazzling proliferation of string quartets much sooner than anyone expected. This was aided in part by the immigration of a large number of European quartets, such as the Galimir, Busch, Budapest, Kolisch, and Pro Arte, who passed their knowledge, experience, and dedication to living composers on to a younger generation of musicians. These have now become the guardians of the venerable old tradition, while their European counterparts seem to have cut themselves off from their roots and moved in an entirely different direction. This was illustrated by recent concerts of four quartets: two German and two American.

Formed in 1994, the Henschel Quartet is a family affair: its players are violinists Christoph and Markus Henschel, violist Monika Henschel-Schwind, and cellist Mathias Beyer-Karlshoj; the Kuss Quartet’s players are violinists Jana Kuss and Oliver Wille, violist William Coleman, and cellist Mikayel Hakhnazaryan. Both groups have won prestigious international prizes and perform in concerts and festivals world-wide. The Henschel was invited to play Haydn’s “Seven Last Words” for the Pope last March.

Technically, both groups are equal to every challenge; their intonation and ensemble are impeccable, their phrasing and dynamics unanimous, their tone is vibrant and intense. Musically, they overdo everything; emphasizing contrast, speed, energy and drive, they lack repose and inwardness, so perhaps it is natural that they showed more affinity for the contemporary works on their programs than for the classical and romantic ones. Indeed, the Kuss’ players say they have “given much thought on how to restore the string quartet to where it once stood at the cutting edge of cultural and compositional life.”

The Henschel’s playing is extroverted, aggressive, over-projected, powerful, often harsh in sound, with stark contrasts and great liberties taken; sometimes every measure had a different tempo, and rhythms were wildly distorted. The cellist is unusually strong, and the first violinist is clearly the “boss,” leading ostentatiously and missing no chance to display his virtuosity. At its April 11 concert, a late Haydn quartet lost its elegance, humor and graciousness, and the whimsical, waltz-like Trio became a showpiece for the first violin. Schumann’s Quartet No. 1 was long on forcefulness, short on poetic intimacy, ardor and tenderness. In contrast, the Adagio of Barber’s Quartet Op. 11 sounded rich and lyrical, and Erwin Schulhoff’s Quartet of 1924 was riveting. Born in Prague in 1894, Schulhoff perished in a Nazi concentration camp in 1942, but though the quartet was written long before the Germans invaded his country, it has a dark, foreboding, grotesque quality, which the Henschel brought vividly to life. The Kuss’ style is less assertive and willful and more democratic than the Henschel’s. Yet at its April 9 concert, the playing, while efficient and polished, was a bit superficial. Tempi were too fast to capture the grace and expressiveness of Mozart’s “Hunt,” or the good humor and passion of Brahms’ Quartet No. 3. It was the performance of Alban Berg’s Quartet Op. 3 that was most persuasive. The players projected the work’s urgency, intensity and lyricism, and, despite its dense texture, brought out the themes, lines and voices.

The American String Quartet (Peter Winograd and Laurie Carney, violinists, Daniel Avshalomov, violist, Wolfram Koessel, cellist) was formed in 1974; the Orion Quartet (Daniel and Todd Philips, brothers and alternating violinists, Steven Tenenbom, violist, Timothy Eddy, cellist) in 1987. Both embody the essential traditional qualities of quartet-playing: tonal beauty, technical control without showiness, expressiveness without excess, and projection tempered with intimacy. They are equally at home in the standard literature and the works of living composers; the American has commissioned, premiered and recorded quartets by Richard Danielpour, Kenneth Fuchs, and Curt Cacioppo, the Orion quartets by Leon Kirchner, Wynton Marsalis and John Harbison, among many others. Both groups also continue another important tradition: they train future chamber musicians through residencies in colleges, conservatories and festivals.

The Orion’s concert on April 18 included Brahms’ Piano Quintet with Peter Serkin, Beethoven’s “Harp” Quartet, and a work written for the group: Kirchner’s Quartet No. 4. The players’ style is distinguished by its warmth, expressiveness, fraternal ensemble and tonal and emotional balance. Their immersion in the Beethoven Quartets began with a series of free concerts for the Millenium, and includes a recording of the cycle. Serkin has played the Brahms with many great quartets; he fitted into the ensemble with uncanny unanimity, and never overpowered the strings – an extraordinary feat.

The American’s program on May 1 began and ended with late Schubert: the Quartettsatz in C minor and the great G major Quartet, flanking Berg’s Quartet Op. 3 and Webern’s Five Movements Op. 5. The performances were beautiful, as always: technically flawless, tonally vibrant, involved and concentrated.
The European string quartet tradition is in good hands – in America

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by Edith Eisler  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

An Earl Wild Tribute

An Earl Wild Tribute
New York Concert Review
June, 2010
Earl Wild

Earl Wild

Since the death of pianist Earl Wild at 94 in January, he has been widely lamented as the last of the old fashioned Romantic virtuosos.  Sadly, this is probably true.  There are many younger players who have an interest in the pyrotechnic repertoire Wild favored, as well as a technical mastery on par with his.  Marc-Andre Hamelin, Nicolai Lugansky, Arcadi Volodos, Yuja Wang and others are able to perform the feats of digital dexterity for which Wild was known during his career, and a number of today’s best-equipped technicians perform Wild’s own fantastical and finger-twisting transcriptions, yet something is missing.  To my ear it is the ineffable elegance – some criticized it as schmaltz – that Wild brought to his playing that may indeed be gone for good.  Perhaps it was a product of the times in which he lived.

Earl Wild was born in 1915, midway through the First World War and the last, fading days of gilded ballrooms, long gowns and white ties.  Television and even radio, the media which would bring him to prominence, were years away, but as a precociously talented little boy growing up in a middle class home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – his father was an accountant in the steel business – he would have glimpsed the doings of the society class to which his parents aspired.  The family never quite made it.  Wild’s father left when he was still a child, and the arrival of the Depression in the 1930s was hard on them, but having tasted the finer things early, Wild became a very elegant man.  It was that innate elegance that shone through in his playing.

As a boy he was taken to hear the great virtuosos of the day.  Hofmann, Rachmaninoff, Godowsky, Lhevinne and many more filled the Syria Mosque concert hall of Wild’s youth with the kind of scintillating, perfectly polished playing he would come to exemplify, and he absorbed it all like a sponge.  He began with local teachers, but at age twelve Wild was accepted as a student by Selmar Janson, himself a student of one of Liszt’s prize pupils, Eugen D’Albert, and it was then that Wild’s superbly flexible and secure technique began to be formed.  It was revised and extended after he moved to New York in the 1930s by two more blazing virtuosos, the speed demon Simon Barere, who is today mostly remembered for his dramatic death (on-stage at Carnegie Hall, moments into a performance of the Grieg Concerto in 1951), and Egon Petri, another fabulous technician and Liszt specialist who must have nurtured an affinity for the same repertoire in his student.

New York was the land of opportunity for a good looking home grown American pianist of Wild’s caliber, and in 1937 opportunity knocked bearing an invitation to join the NBC Symphony under Arturo Toscanini.  It was a dream gig for the 21-year-old, and he refined his performing chops playing nationally broadcast weekly radio concerts.  Wild played the first televised piano recital in 1939 and remembered ever after being nearly broiled by an over-zealous lighting man.  Another TV appearance a couple of years later, this time as soloist with Toscanini in Rhapsody in Blue, brought him national fame.  After Pearl Harbor, he enlisted playing the flute – one of  several other instruments he learned to play as a youngster – in the Navy Band.  When his superiors figured out who he was, he spent the remainder of the war traveling with Eleanor Roosevelt playing the Star Spangled Banner to open her speeches.

Discharged from the service after the war, he went back to broadcasting, switching networks to become staff pianist at ABC where he was able to exercise his talents as a conductor and composer as well.  Veering from the sublime to the ridiculous as his duties required didn’t bother him, but it left an imprint on his reputation that followed him into his post-television career.  Speaking about the opera parodies and other fluff he wrote for Sid Caesar’s variety show in the 1950s, he told The New York Times’ Anthony Tommasini that the work was necessary – he had a dependent mother to support.  He remained with the network until 1968 when he left to concentrate exclusively on his concert career, but some snobbery from his more purist-minded colleagues lingered.  In the late 1970’s when he was given an appointment at The Juilliard School, one faculty wag was overheard to say: “God, they’ll hire Liberace next.”

Composing and arranging had always interested him, and beginning in 1973 he began to write an extraordinary string of highly personal transcriptions for piano – initially for his own use and later published –  among them the Grand Fantasy on Themes from Porgy and Bess, arrangements of 14 songs by Rachmaninoff, and Seven Virtuoso Études on Popular Songs also taken from the Gershwin catalog.  His original works go all the way back to 1928 and include an oratorio Revelations commissioned by ABC in 1962 as well as music for a number of stage plays.  A sonata written in 2000 shows him still, at 84, a man of broad tastes and a consumer of popular culture.  The last movement is entitled Toccata a la Ricky Martin.

Wild was a big, tall and gregarious man of great good humor, and a font of marvelous stories.  He could also be outspoken, and in the days when any hint of scandal could bring a career crashing down, he was never particularly careful about keeping his homosexuality a secret.  In 1972, he began a relationship with Michael Rolland Davis, and they lived together openly as a couple, first in New York and then in homes in Columbus, Ohio and Palm Springs.

Mr. Wild served on the faculties of the Juilliard, Eastman and Manhattan Schools.  He also taught at Ohio State University and at his alma mater Carnegie Mellon University and was, in a field not known for it, beloved for his gentle and genial way with his students.  He was an inveterate giver of master classes, and into his 90s he maintained an international travel and concert schedule that would have prostrated many a younger man.

As a youngster growing up in Boston, I first heard Mr. Wild in the Tchaikovsky Concerto with Arthur Fiedler and The Boston Pops and was so overpowered by the performance and the piece that I began learning it myself.  I didn’t hear him again until the early 1980s, this time at Carnegie Hall, in a dazzling program of piano transcriptions in which cascades of notes seemed to rise from the piano like a fountain of shimmering pearls and bounce across the stage into our laps.  Immersed as I was at the time in the Viennese classics, that concert felt like a guilty pleasure, but a pleasure it was, and I was filled with admiration for Wild’s ease and fluid command.  I heard him several more times in later years, and well into his old age his playing retained an astonishing degree of polish and perfection and always with that bit of romantic schlag missing from most modern performances.  Fortunately, Mr. Wild was a wildly prolific recording artist, and a large chunk of his vast repertoire is represented on nearly 80 compact discs available from Ivory Classics [http://www.ivoryclassics.com], the company he started with his partner Michael Davis.  Among the many, many gems not to be missed:  Eugen D’Albert: Scherzo in F-sharp Major, Strauss/Tausig: Man lebt nur einmal, Anton Rubinstein: Staccato Etude, Tchaikovsky/Pabst Paraphrase on Themes from Sleeping Beauty, and Wild’s own fabulous transcriptions including the 7 Gershwin Etudes and an irresistibly delicious elaboration of the Pas de Quatre from Swan Lake.  He was really something of a magician.  Mr. Davis survives him.

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by Timothy Gilligan  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

New York Concert Review Round-Up for 2009-10

New York Concert Review Round-Up for 2009-10

Even the best-intentioned reporter cannot cover all the concerts of the New York season. Here are some highlights that got left behind

Two violinists presented spectacular recitals: Joshua Bell with his frequent partner Jeremy Denk, and Augustin Hadelich with the esteemed collaborative artist Rohan De Silva. Hadelich, making his New York debut, played in the Frick Collection’s intimate auditorium; Bell played in Carnegie Hall, whose size hardly suited his program of sonatas by Bach, Saint-Saëns, Schumann and Ravel. But his brilliant technique and glorious, intense tone came through, as did his elegance, romantic ardor, and passionate involvement. Hadelich, winner of the 2006 Indianapolis Violin Competition, is every inch a virtuoso. He reveled in the fireworks of Ysaÿe’s “Ballade” and Saraste’s “Carmen Fantasy,” and filled Prokofiev’s second Sonata with sunshine and charm.

The American String Quartet played Beethoven’s daunting Op. 127 with admirable technical and tonal control, poise and expressiveness. With violist Michael Tree, Brahms’ G major Quintet sounded rich, romantic and exuberant; the Finale had true Gypsy abandon. The Orion Quartet also performed Brahms in G-major (the Sextet, with violist Hsin-Yun Huang and cellist Barbara Mallow), along with Beethoven, Bartók, Mozart and Smetana. Perhaps influenced by the prevailing fashion, they have been over-projecting recently, but their playing is always deeply felt and beautiful.

The Tokyo Quartet continued its Beethoven cycle with a warm, serene performance of Op. 59 No. 2, notable for the seamless continuity of its lines. Formed 20 years ago, the Leipzig Quartet displayed remarkable transparency in Haydn’s “Sunrise” Quartet; wrenching grief in Mendelssohn’s F-minor Quartet; longing and passion in Janácek’s “Intimate Letters.” The Panocha Quartet, founded in 1968 at the Prague Conservatory, is distinguished by its limpid tone, simplicity, and unaffected eloquence. An early Mozart Quartet was lovely; Martinu’s cheerful No. 7 (1947) incorporated both his native Czech and jazzy American idioms. In Dvorák’s great Op. 106, the players relished the luscious melodies and spiky Slavic rhythms while weaving a tapestry of independent voices.

Festival Chamber Music, a rotating group of freelance musicians, presented an unusual program in delightful performances: Milhaud’s humorous Suite for clarinet, violin and piano; Beethoven’s lyrical, exuberant Trio for clarinet, cello and piano Op. 38, transcribed from his Septet; songs by Amy Beach with violin and cello obbligatos, and Schubert’s “Shepherd on the Rock.” Cellist/director Ruth Sommers, violinist Theodore Arm and soprano Amy Cofield Williamson were excellent; pianist Hélène Jeanney and clarinetist Charles Neidich, the program’s busiest participants, captured the music’s diverse moods and styles with soloistic brilliance and collaborative sensitivity.

To celebrate his 85th birthday, Pierre Boulez conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in two concerts featuring Béla Bartók: the Concerto for two pianos and percussion, splendidly performed by Pierre–Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich, and “Bluebeard’s Castle,” sung with mesmerizing impact (in Hungarian) by Michelle DeYoung and Falk Struckmann. The orchestra’s principal flutist Mathieu Dufour played Marc-André Dalbavie’s Concerto brilliantly; the orchestra showed its virtuosity and wonderful sound in works by Ravel, Boulez, and Stravinsky’s “Firebird.”

Boulez shared conducting duties with Daniel Barenboim when Carnegie Hall invited the Vienna Philharmonic to open its season with three concerts. The orchestra sounded glorious; intonation and balance were perfect; the playing was rich and homogeneous, yet clear. Except for two Beethoven symphonies, the programs departed from the orchestra’s usual fare with substantial works by Schoenberg, Webern and Boulez. In the first concert, Barenboim’s “Pastoral” Symphony was expansively lyrical; juxtaposing the lush, sensuous finale of Wagner’s “Tristan” with Schoenberg’s Variations demonstrated the birth of a new style from the ashes of the old one. A noisy exodus of disgruntled listeners midway caused Barenboim to announce an encore “for those who stayed” – a fast and furious Johann Strauss Polka.

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by Edith Eisler  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

Gergiev and Berlioz at Carnegie

Gergiev and Berlioz at Carnegie

Valery Gergiev is a ubiquitous musical presence, seemingly able to conduct operas and concerts on several continents simultaneously. Director of the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre since 1988, he is touring North America with its orchestra, chorus and soloists; they stopped off in New York’s Carnegie Hall for three concerts devoted to two Gergiev specialties by Hector Berlioz: the Dramatic Symphony Romeo et Juliette and the opera Les Troyens. The performances were simply magnificent; no wonder he is among today’s busiest, most sought-after conductors. The chorus, in the grand Russian tradition, is superb; its members can emerge as soloists even without stepping forward. The orchestra is equally fine; the strings have the dark, warm sound of the best European groups, the winds are splendid. Love scenes were enhanced by beguiling clarinet obbligatos; the oboe added mournful poignancy to the tragic moments; mellow horns led the hunt, brilliant trumpets the triumphal marches.

The musicians played their hearts out, and, though positioned on stage level, never overpowered the singers – a remarkable feat. Part of the credit belongs to Berlioz, who, with masterful control, lets the orchestra soar at full strength when the singers rest and instantly subdues it when they enter. The music, like all Berlioz, alternates sophisticated complexity with almost naïve simplicity, and combines epic grandeur, drama and passion with melting lyricism, poetic ardor, and heart-breaking sorrow. But amid all the sound and fury of shrilling piccolos and clashing cymbals, it is the intimate scenes of tender affection that remain in the memory.

Romeo et Juilette is a strange realization of Shakespeare’s play. True to its title and to Berlioz’ conviction that music speaks more eloquently than words, the orchestra carries the action, sets the moods, and evokes the characters’ thoughts and feelings. (The score requires from two to ten harps; the Mariinsky had two.) The chorus, a solo mezzo-soprano and tenor act as narrators and commentators; in the last scene, the solo bass becomes Friar Lawrence and delivers a long exhortation to the warring families to finally make peace. The work is rarely performed in its entirety, as it was here, but the elfin “Queen Mab” Scherzo, depicting Romeo’s dream, is a favorite orchestral bravura piece.

By contrast, Les Troyens is a grand opera with a cast of more than 20 characters; requiring a huge chorus and orchestra and over a dozen vocal soloists, it lasts four hours and was performed in two parts on consecutive evenings. Berlioz wrote his own libretto; the first part recounts the tragic end of the siege of Troy, the second the tragic love story between the Carthagean Queen Dido and the Trojan hero Aeneas. The vocally and dramatically most demanding parts are two mezzo-sopranos as Cassandra in Part I and Dido in Part II; Aeneas, a very high, heroic tenor, appears in both parts. The singers, who included the Romeo soloists, were terrific; all except one sang from memory. In Part I, they remained static, but in Part II they acted and interacted, underlining drama and emotion with gestures and movements.

But the real hero was Gergiev. Using no podium gives him unusual freedom of movement; he walked about, turning and leaning toward the players, leapt up, and swayed to the music. He conducted Part I without baton; for Part II, he brought one out, but mostly kept it in his left hand. His knowledge of the complex scores and control of his massive forces were incredible; he was in close contact with the soloists, though he had his back to them and they hardly looked at him. Guiding and shaping each performance in every detail and as an overarching whole, he held the capacity audiences spellbound until the tumultuous ovations.

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by Edith Eisler  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

A Quartet of… Cellists

Sometimes certain works are absent from concert programs for several years and then re-discovered by everybody simultaneously. This season may have set a record in duplications of cello sonatas: within a few weeks, Debussy’s was performed three times, and Schubert’s, Faure’s, Poulenc’s, and Prokofiev’s twice each. They were played by two audience favorites – Steven Isserlis and Timothy Eddy (whose recital was reviewed earlier) – and two strikingly talented newcomers and multiple prize winners who were making their New York debuts: Jean-Guihen Queyras and Andreas Brantelid. Moreover, Eddy’s and Brantelid’s programs were almost identical.

For many young performers, nothing seems to be more difficult than to be simple. The “Arpeggione” was the weakest part of both debut recitals; sinking under the weight of fussy tempo changes, overdone phrasing and dynamics, it lost its continuity and pensive introspection. Queyras’ playing, though technically excellent, was rather fussy altogether; his constantly delayed vibrato, fluctuating tempi and other external effects were especially distracting in a Bach Sonata and three Schubert songs not well chosen for transcription. However, in the Debussy and Poulenc Sonatas, his tonal variety and rhythmic flexibility brought out the manifold colors and character changes beautifully. He was greatly abetted by his long-time pianist Alexandre Tharaud.

Brantelid also benefited from playing with a frequent partner, the esteemed veteran pianist Bengt Forsberg. Though generally wonderfully supportive, he sometimes got carried away and played as loudly as if he were alone on the stage. Brantelid is an extraordinary cellist: his technical command, without being flashy, is so natural and secure that one forgets about it; he draws the listener into the music by the sheer power of his own identification with it. He projected Fauré’s elusiveness, Debussy’s quirky rhythms, character changes, and Prokofiev’s melting lyricism and robust earthiness, all with complete authority.

Isserlis played the Poulenc Sonata as part of a very interesting program he shared with violinist Anthony Marwood and composer/pianist Thomas Adès, whose cello and piano piece, Lieux retrouvés (Rediscovered Places) was receiving its U.S. premiere. Isserlis says he has never played anything so difficult, though the rest of the program was no less challenging. It is indeed very demanding; its figurations, diverse rhythms and sound effects, evoking water, mountains, fields and the city, require utmost virtuosity and imagination of the players. Adès, who played throughout the concert, joined Marwood in Janácek’s Violin Sonata; their affinity for his idiosyncratic, prosodic idiom, his fluid tempi and shifting emotions was remarkable. For his own work, Adès had a most persuasive advocate in Isserlis, a splendid cellist and a compelling, versatile, adventurous musician. Their performance of the Poulenc, preceded by arrangements of two sad, slow pieces by Liszt, was brilliant, full of character and contrasts, with natural, poised transitions between lyricism, assertiveness, exuberance, and irony. Finally, the three players gave a fabulous performance of Ravel’s notoriously difficult Piano Trio. Surmounting its instrumental and rhythmic hurdles with incredible ease, they captured its poetic atmosphere, changing moods and kaleidoscopic colors with total identification and unanimity.

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by Edith Eisler  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

Cello-Piano Duos Prove Popular This Winter

Formed in 1980, the Timothy Eddy/Gilbert Kalish cello-piano duo is another remarkable collaboration. The two players are ubiquitous on the music scene: in addition to giving concerts together, they are active as soloists, chamber musicians and pedagogues. Eddy is the cellist of the Orion Quartet, in residence at Mannes, in whose intimate concert hall the Duo often presents sonata recitals. Their latest concert there—a capacity house on January 25th, 2010—featured many different styles. Classicism: Beethoven’s Variations on a Theme from Mozart’s Magic Flute, played with grace, humor, and inward expressiveness; Romanticism blended with atonality: Ben Weber’s brief Five Pieces, in which three sustained, slow, mournful character sketches are framed by two lively ones; Impressionism: Debussy’s colorful, piquant, ironic Sonata, and Fauré’s Sonata No. 2, elusive and very rarely performed, but obviously loved by these two players. After all this misty evanescence, the vigorous, earthly Prokofiev Sonata brought a sense of relief, as if the clouds had lifted and revealed solid ground under a blue sky. The players, too, seemed more relaxed, unrestrained and free, reveling in its rhythmic vitality and its full-blooded, soaring melodies, totally at one with the music and each other.

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by Edith Eisler  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

Despite snow, Ax and Bell recitals attract large audiences to Carnegie Hall

Despite a huge snow storm and a prediction of one, people came out in droves to the large Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall to see Emanuel Ax and Joshua Bell. In many ways, violin and piano recitals sound best in smaller, more intimate spaces for which they were intended, but Ax and Bell sell lots of tickets and they need a space that can meet demands. On February 10th, 2010, Manhattan received about 10 inches of snow—not nearly as much as Washington D.C. got the week before—but nonetheless, it was enough to potentially scare people away. Good thing Emanuel Ax has such a great following; the many that attended were treated to a 200th Anniversary celebration of Chopin and Schumann’s birth. Ax was at his best in music by Chopin: the Polonaise-fantaisie in A-flat, the Andante spianato and Grand Polonaise, and especially three Mazurkas: the op 41, No. 1 in C-sharp Minor; the Op. 24, No. 2 in C Major and the Op. 56, No. 3 in C Minor. The young Brit Thomas Ades wrote three mazurkas of his own for the occasion, and they are charming—although they don’t really sound like mazurkas. The first one was almost a carbon copy of Prokofiev, but the last two were quite inventive, with unusual leaps and harmonies. Throughout the program, Ax often used his soft-pedal, and his subdued, semi-passionate performances of Schumann’s Fantasiestucke and Fantasy in C Major lacked some grandeur and spontaneity in faster passages. His encore, the Chopin Waltz in A minor, was also one of his more automatic-pilot performances. Maybe his performance inadvertently hurried as a result of subconsciously and altruistically wanting people to get home after a stormy day. (I know; it’s a stretch)

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by Anthony Aibel  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

James Levine’s New Baton Technique… and Superhero Status

January 24th, 2010 at Carnegie Hall

James Levine, who just recovered from spinal surgery, has returned to the Metropolitan Opera pit and the concert stage in fine fettle. At his January 24th Carnegie Hall appearance with the MET Orchestra – their second this season – his high-voltage energy, fiery temperament, exuberance, and emotional—as well as mental—concentration were totally unimpaired. However, his conducting technique seemed to have undergone a startling change. Since the musicians, after many years of collaboration, are so attuned to him that they respond to the merest lift of his eyebrows, his motions used to be “close to the vest” and so small as to be invisible to the audience. His rapport with the orchestra is still palpable, but his gestures have now become big and sweeping: he waves his arms in all directions, turning and swaying from side to side. It was very exciting. The program was framed by two of the repertoire’s most popular symphonies: Schubert’s “Unfinished” and Beethoven’s Fifth. Levine seems to have succumbed to the current penchant for extreme dynamic contrasts, from the softest murmur of whispering strings to the most thunderous use of timpani. The opening of the Schubert was nearly inaudible, but otherwise, it was beautifully lyrical and introspective. The Beethoven was extremely dramatic, and the orchestra played splendidly, as always. Levine, in addition to conducting four operas at the Met, is returning to Carnegie Hall for two concerts with the Boston Symphony, plus directing Met Chamber Ensemble Concerts and master classes. The audience gave this intrepid musical superman a hero’s welcome and rewarded him with standing ovations.

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by Edith Eisler  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

“Houston, We Have a Problem”

January 28, 2010 at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY

If any orchestra should tour with Holst’s “The Planets”, the Houston Symphony should—due to its relationship with NASA and the Johnson Space Center. But a film experiment directed by Duncan Copp called “The Planets: an HD Odyssey” didn’t work: the space images and video, though extraordinarily clear and beautiful, were too generic for Holst’s mythical descriptions of the planets and our own imaginations that inevitably follow. It was like experiencing an orchestra play James Horner’s riveting music to the film

“Titanic” while watching real under-water pictures of the sunken ship. One is reality; the other delves into story-telling.

In the future, a few actual stills of a planet could be shown at the beginning of each movement of the suite, and the remainder should focus on the music and the orchestra with the lights up (the players were hardly visible). In terms of future video accompaniment, I’d rather watch close-ups of the Houston performers playing this fantastically detailed score. On the other hand, the Houston Symphony, which sounded less-than-stellar in “The Planets”, might want to make some changes; there were several unclear attacks and missed notes from the trumpets and horns, and the playing as a whole lacked tonal refinement and a robust symphonic sound. The orchestra’s music director, Hans Graf, led light, airy performances of Stravinsky’s “Scherzo fantastique” and “Fireworks”, which book-ended the program, and Dutilleux’s “Timbres, espace, mouvement, ou La Nuit etoilee” was given a dedicated performance, with the orchestra’s fine cello and bass sections sounding strong and well-blended.

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by Anthony Aibel  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY