Jason Neukom, violin; Andrew “Gio” Giordano, violin (& whistle); Sean Neukom, viola;

Ryan Ash, cello

J.P. Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY

January 31, 2023

Beo means: to bless, make happy, gladden, and delight. Based on this one introductory hearing, I believe the Beo String Quartet is poised to do just that, to an ever widening circle of audiences. It is not easy to distinguish one’s ensemble these days, with so much competition, especially in the quartet formation. The Beo players have an unusual feature: All of the players are multi-talented, playing other instruments (and electronics, video, etc.) than their principal one, however on this occasion, we were only treated briefly to some of Andrew Giordano’s whistling. Also, first violinist Jason Neukom is violist/composer Sean Neukom’s brother.

Let me begin by stating clearly their primary virtues: two areas of perfection—1) absolute purity of intonation, which was really evident in their Bach selections and 2) that supernatural “one-ness” of interpretive intent that animates the best quartets. Well, you might say, is there a “but” coming? Not so much a “but,” rather a cautionary admonition to choose better contemporary music. I sense that they are a “young” group in attitude though the quartet itself is eight years old, and I’m certain they will grow beautifully.

The recital began with Mizzy Mazzoli’s Enthusiasm Strategies, a work about which she states “I think of music itself as a strategy for mustering enthusiasm and joy.” Composed for the legendary Kronos Quartet, the flights of skittering harmonics do collapse into a modern version of a chorale, but the disappearing ending for me gave a quite unenthusiastic tone to the end, depressing in fact. There was a lot of non-vibrato playing from the strings, a severe test of intonation, which Beo more than met. In fact, there was a lot of non-vibrato playing throughout the program, but they knew when to turn it on for heightened expressivity.

They then followed with a quick tour through just over one-fourth of Bach’s seminal Die Kunst der Fuge, his musical last will and testament, beginning with the first two, and ending with the (projected) unfinished quadruple fugue, the third subject area of which contains the musical spelling of Bach’s name: B (B Flat)-A-C-H (B Natural). In this selection, I felt the need for more experience. What they did do very well was truly give the sense of a conversation among equals. The subject’s first five notes are: D-A-F-D-C♯ (in German, the word for a musical sharp is “kreuz” or cross [♯], a word that held great significance for the Pietist Lutheran milieu in which Bach worked). The quartet played the first four notes without vibrato, then poured it on appropriately for the “cross.” Since Bach wrote out the work in four-part open score, to stress the pedagogical aspect, and included absolutely no suggestions of instrumentation, phrasing, or dynamics, every soloist or ensemble who wishes to tackle it faces a daunting multitude of decisions to be made. There were two areas I found lacking, despite my admiration for the give-and-take: 1) some odd phrasing and articulation choices that would probably infuriate the “historically informed” people, and which plain old non-expert audiences would be blissfully unaware of; (appoggiaturas not resolving to their lower notes, questionable detaching of notes that could be smooth and vive versa) and 2) more important, there was a need for greater understanding of where the harmonic stresses and resolutions should be, the result of the vertical chords created by the horizontal lines, of which Bach was very aware. I’m being super-picky only because the greatness of this body of work deserves, as cellist Ryan Ash put it, lifetime study. However, it was a great pleasure, as the contrapuncti rolled over the audience, to gaze upward to the glorious coffered ceiling of J.P. Morgan’s library and its treasure trove of books and manuscripts, and to feel centered in a hive of civilization.

The quartet then turned to a composition by its own violist, Sean Neukom, whose People (2022) received its New York City premiere. Its program is a bit simplistic, “We’re born. We grow. We learn.” We achieve greatness… but wait, we’re so ineffectual at solving problems like war and poverty. Oh, we die and the cycle starts all over again with new birth. Such large themes, while often attempted in musical transformations, were not convincingly solved by this one. Although (!) we did get to hear the uncommonly pretty and pure whistling of Andrew Giordano. Sean Neukom is also the group’s producer, responsible for their already large (and growing) discography. In this work we heard the coalescing of elements into life, their increase, and the addition of chaos, and the slipping back into nothingness (reminiscent of the Mazzoli), where the whistling took on a poignant character. On the other hand, why are we whistling about the life cycle? Because there is nothing to be done about it? Today’s young people are clearly working out some existential unease.

The quartet saved the best for last: Shostakovich’s self-made memorial (though he would live another fifteen years), his eighth string quartet, Op. 110 (1960). Not only does it contain blatantly the musical spelling of his name (see Bach above) D-S-C-H (D, E flat, C, B Natural), but many fragments of his earlier works (First, Eighth, and Tenth Symphonies, Piano Trio, First Violin Concerto, First Cello Concerto, Second Piano Sonata, the song Tormented By Grievous Bondage, and the love theme from Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, the work that got him in so much trouble with Stalin). All this is presented in five movements dedicated ostensibly “In memory of the victims of fascism and war,” which the bumbling, musically ignorant Soviet bureaucrats could interpret as pro-Soviet, and everyone who knew Shostakovich could know was exactly the opposite. I call this phenomenon “the secret signs, the impenetrable wall.”

The heat of Beo’s performance of this work showed me that its strengths may lie in the traditional repertoire, despite their commitment to adventuresome commissioning and their admirable educational outreach angle—so necessary if there is to be an audience for this sort of thing at all in the future. Every contrast in the work was brought out beautifully, from the violence of “the three knocks” of the KGB on one’s door at three in the morning, to the song the Jews were forced to sing while digging their own trench graves, to the sickly limping of the klezmer-inspired waltz, and the cloying romance of the doomed adulterers in Lady Macbeth. Now there’s a composer who can successfully put ALL of life into a piece of music!

Bravo Beo, I hope to hear many more good things from and about you for years to come.

Mohamed Shams, piano; Eduardo Leandro, percussion

Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY

January 30, 2023

Is there any sound Charles Neidich can not make on the clarinet? If so, I have yet to know about it. I have reviewed the legendary clarinetist many times in these pages, always with the greatest pleasure, in the context of his groundbreaking Wa concert series in the Tenri gallery space in Greenwich Village (complete with a gourmet dinner, catered by his wife, Ayako Oshima); but this is the first time I have seen him in a more formal hall.

Mr. Neidich announced (in sometimes redundant verbal program notes) that not only was the Naumburg series titled “looks back,” but that one should also regard his artistry as perpetually “looking forward”- which is sage advice for all artists. Mr. Neidich has the mellow songfulness of decades of experience, but his youthful inquisitiveness informs his choices every bit as much.

There was a subtle thread of anti-Semitic persecution linking all the works on the first half. The recital began with Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Clarinet Sonata, Op. 28, written at the end of World War II in 1945. Weinberg, once mentioned in the same reverential tones as Shostakovich and Prokofiev, was subsequently banned, and written out of Soviet music history. Bringing his substantial oeuvre to the public’s attention has been slow and difficult. Even his close friend and colleague Shostakovich couldn’t prevail on the authorities to let him out of prison (for “Jewish bourgeois nationalism”). Only Stalin’s death in 1953 saved him from certain execution (as had befallen other members of his family). Mr. Neidich likens the work to pages from a diary, a common enough “coded” musical practice in the Soviet era. The sonata begins with an ambling Allegro “as though one were going for a walk to buy some milk” and each movement slows down, with Jewish laments and mounting terror assuming center stage. This “universal prayer for humanity” was given the masterly Neidich treatment, and I must mention one clarinet leitmotif that characterizes his playing: the gorgeous, seemingly infinite qualities of his final notes, whether of a movement or a whole piece. They seem to hover in the air beyond what any mere mortal could achieve.

Ursula Mamlok, the puckish composition guru at Manhattan School of Music for 45 (!) years, had the “good fortune” (one feels strange calling it that) to escape Berlin with her family in 1938, directly the result of Kristallnacht, first to Ecuador, then the United States. Rückblick (In Erinnerung an die Reichspogromnacht 9.Nov.1938) (2002)  was originally conceived for alto saxophone (or clarinet or bass-clarinet) and piano. It is the only direct reference in her vast works list to the Holocaust. What I took away from the superb performance was the sheer economy of her four mini-elegies, conveying in a few minutes what another composer might have turned into a gigantic symphony.

The Mendelssohn F major violin sonata, abandoned by the composer in 1838 as a “wretched sonata,” was discovered and revised by violinist Yehudi Menuhin in 1953, Violinists have been grateful for another Mendelssohn violin sonata besides the F Minor, Op. 4. And now, will other clarinetists dare to take up the Neidich clarinet transformation? Honestly, although the work has all the beloved hallmarks of the composer, especially the “elfin” scurrying of the Finale, so reminiscent of Carl Maria von Weber’s Moto perpetuo, I don’t think the work is really top-drawer Mendelssohn, and that if he himself had continued working on it, it may have ended up with more complexity, especially in terms of contrapuntal development. No matter, the two players sparkled. Mendelssohn’s connection to the “theme” I detected for this half: grandson of the Jewish Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, Felix and his siblings converted to Protestantism in that earlier period of anti-Semitism, then his posthumous reputation endured smearing by Wagner, as well as being purged from German concert life by the Nazis, in favor of Schumann.

At this juncture, I must devote a special paragraph to Mr. Neidich’s long-time collaborator, pianist Mohamed Shams, a perfect partner if ever there was one. There is nothing he cannot do, he possesses what I call the “quiet virtuosity” that only those in the know realize is happening, solving every potential issue before it occurs, perfection of balance, phrasing, and unity with the soloist. Simply amazing. One little quibble, at times I felt he was being overly deferential, he could have let the piano roar a little more (the lid was up).

The “persecution” theme followed into the second half with Edison Denisov, who composed largely under the Darmstadt spell: the aesthetic of Boulez and Stockhausen, who felt that all music that was not serial was beneath contempt. Denisov too was blacklisted by Soviet bureaucrats in 1979. His cosmopolitanism enabled him to get influential Western-European contemporary music to his students behind the Iron Curtain. There is a later added subtitle to Denisov’s Ode for clarinet, piano, and percussion (1968)- Mr. Neidich explained, not found on the autograph or any published version,“in memory of Che Guevara.” The work required Mr. Shams to play inside the piano, brushing and plucking strings. Percussionist Eduardo Leandro was masterfully sensitive, particularly in the chimes that got softer and softer. Mr. Neidich revealed the drama in his improvisatory flights (Denisov had been forced to write “one” way to play it by his publishers), the first time I’m sure New York has ever heard the work as intended.

Now Neidich the composer comes to our attention, with a recent (2023) reworking of his Icarus Ascending. Bear in mind that 2023 is only 30 days old! He uses the advanced techniques of microtones and multiphonics in his already huge palette. One sensed the soaring, questing of the disobedient son, but I do take issue with his conclusion that Icarus rises again, which for me removes the tragedy.

I will admit that I have never heard a note of Julia Perry’s music live in concert. This is almost unfathomable, as she was prolific and gifted. (She also attended my first undergraduate school, Westminster Choir College.). Serenity (1972) was originally written for oboe, then clarinet by the composer. Despite her health woes (paralyzed by stroke), Ms. Perry still believed in music’s healing power. The piece was offered as a sort of balm and mood-shift prior to the concluding work.

Although Brahms had virtually renounced composition, a chance meeting with the Meiningen orchestra clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld unlocked his heart as well as his desire to compose, resulting in the masterpieces: Clarinet Trio, Clarinet Quintet, and the two sonatas Op. 120. Signs of the misanthropic, gruff Brahms’s flirtatiousness (non-sensual of course, but collegial) were visible in his nicknaming Richard “Fraülein” Mühlfeld. His clarinet ability revealed to Brahms new horizons in sonority, in Brahms’s beloved middle and low registers that he had always favored in his vocal writing. The two Opus 120 sonatas were composed at the same time, and they do have a valedictory feeling: the obsession with Bach chorales, the advanced, compressed compositional devices, fearless dissonance (usually experienced as passing tones or suspensions). At times during the E-flat, the more serene of the two, the writing seems to be noodling around between the two players (again the superb Mr. Shams on piano), and neither is really dominant, it’s like a private conversation to which we have been invited to eavesdrop.

The ovation was tumultuous, and so richly deserved. Therefore, Mr. Neidich said the only possible encore was the Andante un poco Adagio (second movement) of the other Op. 120 sonata, the F minor. A healing balm, a sharing, what Mr. Neidich stressed was the “communal” aspect of music making, the infinity symbol of energy that passes from the artist to the listener and back and forth.

All of us will keep “looking forward” to more Neidich!

“The East and the West”

Qilin Sun, piano

Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY

January 20, 2023

Well, it has happened again. For only the third time in my nearly ten years of writing for this publication, a pianist has taken the stage, and by her very demeanor, and the way she played the very first note of her recital, I burst into tears (good ones!) and I knew that we would be in “good hands” for the rest of the program.

Qilin Sun, a Chinese-born prodigy, has had the best training imaginable (BMus, MMus, and now DMA at Juilliard with the superb Yoheved Kaplinsky), and she already has concerto touring experience.

Ms. Sun took the stage for the contemporary Chinese music half of the recital with her hair in a severe central braid and an aura of intense concentration. She waited at the keyboard until the hall had completely quieted down and she was ready. That was when that magical first note happened, the beginning of Pictures from Bashu (1958) by Huang Hu-Wei (1932-2019), six brief impressions of life in the pianist’s hometown, as she explained in her charming (but very soft) verbal program notes.

About those program notes, first of all, I thought we weren’t supposed to say “East” and “West” anymore, because: east or west of where? It implies centuries of colonial attitudes toward Asian countries. But lo and behold, during her small speech from the stage, Ms. Sun even said “Oriental” music, an even more pejorative term according to the late Edward Said.

Perhaps a more fruitful way to look at Ms. Sun’s program would be to focus on the dilemmas and compromises Chinese classical composers have had to confront. After all, any time someone is sitting down at a Steinway concert grand, and its twelve chromatic tones per octave, some degree of compromise is inevitable. In the best sense, all of her Chinese piano works are a “fusion,” a term we use in restaurants for example.

Ms. Sun’s pianism featured all my favorite things: liquid beautiful tone, fine rhythmic spine, and many many layers of sound (what the French call the plans sonores) in her voicing. Only when the dynamic rose above forte did her Hamburg Steinway not co-operate, instead producing its characteristic glassy upper register, I did not regard that as her fault. She also possesses that mysterious ingredient that can’t be taught: charisma. At all times, you could see, and hear (!), her strong sense of mission regarding Chinese music.

After showing us Bashu, the next work was Three Stanzas on Plum Blossoms (1973) by Wang Jian-Zhong (1933-2016), a work based on a piece from the Tang dynasty (618 – 907 A.D.) originally composed for the Guqin, a seven-stringed instrument of the zither family. Ms. Sun explained the importance of plum blossoms, which bloom first, even while winter’s cold is still present; that they symbolize vitality and vigor of nature, and courage and strength of the people. In this work, the musical compromise was most severe, as all the sliding and microtonal nature of the work that one hears on the Guqin was not revealed in the piano solo version, despite Ms. Sun’s continued gorgeous playing.

She then turned to Chen Qi-Gang’s Instants d’un Opéra de Pékin (2000). Qi-Gang (b. 1951), a naturalized French citizen and Messiaen’s last student, wrote a rhapsodic translation of (I imagine) his experience attending Chinese opera. If I didn’t know any better, I would imagine that this was a hitherto undiscovered work by Messiaen himself, and it refers at times to Debussy’s La Cathédrale engloutie.

Numa Ame (2017) by Zhang Zhao (b. 1964) followed. Numa Ame means Origin of the Sun or “most beautiful home,” a place where the Hani people put their good wishes. It represents the composer’s deep thoughts and good wishes for his hometown. I kept hearing numerous references to Zoltán Kodály’s folk rhapsodies, despite the 6800 km distance.

For me, the only unsuccessful work on the first half was Yin Qing’s Ode to Land, written last year by a twenty-four year old composer specifically for Ms. Sun. It was quite blustery, reminiscent of Liszt, but without that composer’s genius and experience. Here, the strident, bright piano was pushed beyond its limits.

After intermission, Ms. Sun took the stage with a change of gown, and her hair loosened, flowing free. She favored the audience with one work that had to convey the entire “western” portion of her chosen dichotomy, Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in B-flat major, Op. 84. This sonata, the last of the three so-called “war” sonatas, contains all the lyrical longing tinged with the undercurrents of fear and panic of the Russian people during WWII. Fragments of works originally conceived for homages to Pushkin (Eugene Onegin and Queen of Spades) waft in and out of the first two movements, and the work is cyclic as well.

In a similarity to the Chinese composers, Prokofiev himself was viewed as something of a compromiser for returning to his native Russia after a very successful cosmopolitan sojourn in Paris. All of Ms. Sun’s piano virtues were on vivid display. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the work played live with such exquisitely clear voicing, no matter how turgid the texture. She truly captured the sognando (dreaming) quality of the second movement. This sonata was premiered by the great Emil Gilels, and Ms. Sun may rightly take her place in the league of mastery.

After accepting a tumultuous, well-deserved ovation, and many bouquets of flowers, Ms. Sun ended with only one encore: Tchaikovsky’s poignant June-Barkarole from The Seasons, Op. 37bis, No. 6. Perfectly delineated, it scattered a balm over the hall if anyone was rattled by the violence of Prokofiev.

I would go out on a limb and predict great things for Ms. Sun, if she wants them and if she pursues them. I would love to hear her do a complete Ravel cycle. Thank you, Ms. Sun, for restoring me musically.

The Oberlin Orchestra, Oberlin College Choir, Oberlin Gospel Choir, Oberlin Musical Union

Raphael Jiménez, Conductor

Chabrelle Williams, soprano; Ronnita Miller, mezzo-soprano; Limmie Pulliam, tenor; Eric Greene, baritone

Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, New York, NY

January 20, 2023

On January 20, Carnegie Hall was packed for a grand ending to the week of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as musicians from Oberlin performed a program featuring The Ordering of Moses, the fifty-minute oratorio (1932), by a noted black Canadian-American composer. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943). The Oberlin Orchestra, Oberlin College Choir, Oberlin Gospel Choir, and Oberlin Musical Union all joined forces for this still-underappreciated work, along with a first half consisting of the Tragic Overture of Brahms and a 2018 work by Puerto Rican composer Iván Enrique Rodríguez.

To open the program, Oberlin President Carmen Twillie Ambar greeted the audience with words about Oberlin’s historic role in the struggle for diversity and freedom, an important one indeed, as Oberlin was the first American college to fully admit Black students and the first to admit women.  Conservatory Dean William Quillen followed with his own welcome, adding to his words in the program booklet, which had noted that R. Nathaniel Dett was an Oberlin graduate in 1908, the first Black double major, and the first Black alum to receive an honorary doctorate from them in 1926.  One can understand, for such an Oberlin-centric occasion, that the speakers might not dwell on Dett’s history with many other institutes of higher education, but these included also Harvard (where he won two prizes, 1920-21), the Fontainebleau School in France, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger (1929), and the Eastman School of Music, where he received his Master of Music degree in 1932, composing The Ordering of Moses as his thesis (to be reworked for its premiere in 1937). Dett was a model of the scholarly and artistic ideals that uplift individuals and groups, and as the final jubilant movement of his oratorio resounded at Carnegie, there seemed enough inspiration in the hall to fuel the entire planet.

The connection between the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt into freedom and the emancipation of the enslaved Africans needs little explanation, but suffice it to say that spirituals are incorporated and woven into the texture throughout, as was a growing pursuit during Dett’s Oberlin days studying Dvořák, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and others. As Dett wrote later in 1918, “We have this wonderful store of folk music—the melodies of an enslaved people … But this store will be of no value unless we utilize it.” The spiritual Go Down Moses permeates his oratorio from the work’s first descending four-note motive in the cello, foreshadowing the specific intervals matched to the words “Egypt’s land.” The solo cellist, presumably the listed Principal, Amanda Vosburgh, handled this opening and her recurring solo lines with sensitivity. The orchestral playing was excellent overall under the direction of conductor Raphael Jiménez.

Enter the singers. We first heard from excellent baritone Eric Greene as The Word (essentially the narrator of the story) and later as the Voice of God. Mr. Greene was regal in delivering his solemn account of the Israelites’ bondage, and he was soon joined by mezzo-soprano Ronnita Miller, equally successful in projecting torment as the Voice of Israel. She was then paired in a compelling duet with the impressive soprano Chabrelle Williams as Miriam (sister of Moses). The chorus was powerful and passionate, to say the least, and always well-timed and reliable. Just occasionally the upper choral voices were overpowering to the point of stridency  – only mentioned because a poor tyke in front of me was forced to cover his ears, and I sometimes wanted to do the same. Dett wrote so much brilliance into his orchestration itself, including the clanking of chains in the percussion section, that no exaggerated choral volume is necessary to convey the power of his ideas. Where the chorus was particularly effective was in parts where they echoed or underscored certain phrases, such as “Mercy Lord” or later in the “Hallelujah” which, as Courtney-Savali L. Andrews aptly put it in her program notes resembles “call-and-response – much like the climax of sermonic exegesis in the Black church.” Their timing was just right, and their preparation, credited in the program to conservatory faculty Gregory Ristow and Ben Johns, was excellent.

Though God in a traditional oratorio is generally a bass or baritone, tenor Limmie Pulliam is divine the second he opens his mouth. He was superb in his role as the hero Moses, projecting a warm, rich tone that captured the leader’s strength, but also the touch of vulnerability as he undertook his mission to cross the Red Sea.

All in all, these combined forces created a memorable interpretation of Dett’s magnum opus. High points were many, including the March of the Israelites which sets a haunting choral hum over an irresistibly driving beat. The latter’s kinship with later film scores (e.g., Rózsa’s King of Kings) may even suggest that later composers owed a certain debt to Dett (!). The highest point, naturally, was the rousing final section, He is King of Kings, in which all the musicians united in unbounded jubilance. Their ecstatic music of praise and deliverance was exceeded only by the roar of applause as listeners jumped to their feet. Bravissimo!

Incidentally, at the risk of sounding heretical, one wonders whether, just as Handel’s Hallelujah chorus is sometimes excerpted from the oratorio Messiah, this last movement of Dett (paired with perhaps one other) might allow audiences more valuable exposure to this very special composer for programs where there are not fifty minutes to spare. Perhaps this happens already, but I haven’t encountered it.

Meanwhile, with a first half that had fifteen minutes of spoken introduction, there was room on the program only for two relatively short works before intermission, the Tragic Overture of Brahms, Op. 81 (composed in 1880, the same year as the Academic Festival Overture) and A Metaphor for Power (2018) by ASCAP award-winning Puerto Rican composer Iván Enrique Rodríguez (b. 1990).

The Brahms was majestically done, with the passion that tends to be seen more frequently with student ensembles than with professionals (no “phoning it in”) – and there were only fleeting moments of rough edges where there could have been tauter ensemble. Especially beautiful were some of their hushed piano dynamics. The entire orchestra and their conductor Raphael Jiménez can be very proud.

A Metaphor for Power (taking its name from a famous James Baldwin quote) closed the first half. It is, in the words of its composer Iván Enrique Rodríguez, “a musical essay that attempts to address the present turbulence of ideologies, dreams, and hard-hitting realities. The piece unfolds as an expedition through an expanse of troublesome experiences visited by fleeting and unsuccessful moments of hope.” One need look no further for the latter “unsuccessful moments” than the fragments of America the Beautiful that dissolve into a dissonant chromatic puddle, the rumble of indecipherable spoken words that convey unrest, and the hints of My Country ‘Tis of Thee cast in irony and despair.

The orchestration reflects imagination, employing everything from harp and glockenspiel to Mahler hammer and tubular bells. There was no question that this composer is a gifted colorist with an abundance of emotional energy and the means to communicate it. He certainly had some fans in the audience, and he bounded to the stage exultantly afterwards to take his bows.

Chang Li, piano

Contemporary musicians have many tools at their disposal with which to promote their artistry.  The Chinese pianist Chang Li, a doctoral student at Michigan State University, and an active solo and collaborative performer, has released a digital album, Trace Back, available on iTunes and various other digital music platforms, as an introduction to his work for listeners who may not otherwise encounter him in a concert setting.  Like many other compilations of this variety, it is a collection of short pieces, some familiar to the casual listener, some not, meant to form an initial musical portrait of the pianist.

After having listened to the album, it is now clear to me that its title refers to the genealogical journey from the first composer represented here, Lowell Liebermann, all the way to his historical ancestor, Domenico Scarlatti.  This temporal reversal, from Liebermann through Scriabin, Debussy, Schubert, and finally Scarlatti, functions as a brief history of the piano as a lyrical, expressive vessel for the composer, allowing Mr. Li to use his natural gifts for flexible rubato and a singing tone.  The one composer conspicuously absent from this collection, Frédéric Chopin, is the unacknowledged link in this chain, the one to whom all of his successors pay homage.  Judging from the care and attention given to all of these selections, it would be a pleasure to hear some of Mr. Li’s Chopin on a future recording. 

The most revelatory performance comes right at the beginning, with Liebermann’s Nocturne No. 1, Op. 20.  I have always been a fan of this composer, especially of his works for piano.  In his treatment of this piece, Mr. Li gives ample space to the constantly shifting harmonies in both right and left hands, creating a sense of unease and mystery.  These passages are then interrupted by brief, fortissimo outbursts of brutality before returning, each time more quietly, to the nocturne rhythm.  This is a sensitive performance of a modern classic of piano literature.

The link between Liebermann and Scriabin is cleverly made more obvious by the pianist’s immediate segue into Scriabin’s Five Preludes, Op. 16.  Right away, No.1 continues a similar left hand motif, though now in Scriabin’s voice, still harmonically surprising, but of an earlier era.  Again, perhaps to emphasize the connection, Mr. Li employs ample rubato, phrasing with much freedom.  The remaining preludes are all gems, in particular, No. 4 and No. 5, which show the unmistakable influence of Chopin in an uncanny way.  These preludes fit the pianist like a glove and served to remind me of Scriabin’s essential place in the history of Romantic composition.

Mr. Li’s interpretations of Debussy’s Suite Bergamesque and the four Schubert Impromptus, Op. 90 (D. 899) were equally impressive for sheer tonal beauty and sensitive phrasing.  I have heard the Debussy played with more reserve, more brain than heart, but these were valid approaches also.  In Clair de Lune however, a little less pedal and more emotional distance from the music might have served it better. 

What a brilliant idea to end with Scarlatti, another titan of the keyboard, whose joyful Sonata in C major, K. 159, brought this album to a close.  With impeccable fingerwork and crisp execution, Mr. Li proved his versatility as an artist here, as in the entire recording.  I look forward to hearing more from him, perhaps even in a real concert hall someday.

Jonathan Griffith, DCINY Artistic Director and Principal Conductor

Sir Karl Jenkins, CBE, DCINY Composer-in-Residence

Distinguished Concerts Orchestra; Distinguished Concerts Singers International

Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY

January 16, 2023

Distinguished Concerts International New York (DCINY) kicked off its 2023 season with a concert featuring music by its initial composer-in-residence, Sir Karl Jenkins, who has appeared with DCINY sixteen times since its beginning in 2008 (even taking into account the ‘pandemic pause’). DCINY owes a measure of its continuing success to the patronage not only of Jenkins, but also his wife Lady Carol Barratt, who were thanked in the program. Jenkins is one of the most frequently performed composers in the world, and it’s easy to understand why when one engages with his logical, tonal, non-threatening musical language.

The (uncredited) string orchestra began with a curtain raiser: Jenkins’s “concerto grosso” titled Palladio, in honor of the Renaissance architect whose villas remain paragons of proportion, and linear and spatial harmony- all qualities that adhere to music as well. Jorge Ávila, the always excellent concertmaster, was kept busy, as were other string individuals, with the back-and-forth answering typical of the form. (I only know Mr. Ávila’s name through personal acquaintance and repeated sightings at these concerts.) Even the most untutored audience member would recognize the first movement from the old De Beers TV commercial “A Diamond Is Forever,” which was ubiquitous for quite some time. Some have referred to Jenkins as a minimalist, but in this work, I was thinking something more neo-Baroque, along the lines of “Vivaldi 3.0,” to use software update lingo. The proportions of its three movements were indeed graceful, and they did not overstay their welcome, a quality sorely needed in the main work that followed.

Instead of an intermission, while the massed choir was taking to the risers and the orchestra was growing in size, a question-and-answer with Jenkins, hosted by NYC radio personality Elliott Forrest was held, which turned out to be essentially a promotion for Jenkins’s upcoming CD release (June 2023) One World.

Jenkins’s Requiem (2005) is dedicated to his father. A solemn tribute it is. All the sections of the Latin Mass for the Dead are present, as well as five Japanese haiku (two of them are combined with the Latin sections Benedictus and Agnus Dei). Those sections have the addition of a shakuhachi (the ancient Japanese end-blown wooden flute), played with style by James Nyoraku Schlefer, the only credited musician other than the ever-reliable Jonathan Griffith. Mr. Schlefer did not wear the traditional straw hat but did wear the long skirt-pant associated with the Buddhist monks and their Zen meditation. Crossing cultures is something of a personal mission for Jenkins. Also added to the strings were French horns, a harp, and an array of percussion that included various ethnic drums.

This is a Requiem that accentuates the consoling and/or sad tones of the mass until the In Paradisum, with a short detour for some of the requisite terror of the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath). A choir of 194 voices, on this occasion truly international (Australia, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States [Iowa, Pennsylvania]) sang with obvious enthusiasm and involvement, though I was underwhelmed by their forte dynamics in the needed panic of the Dies Irae and the few other extroverted places. However, their soft shades and nuances were lovely, a tribute to Maestro Griffith’s ability to make unum from pluribus in a short period of time.

Generally speaking, the main interest in Jenkins’s music is harmonic, though matters become more interesting when he introduces imitative counterpoint. His chord progressions “telegraph” mourning. For me, the only issue was that once the affect is established, each movement goes on far too long, and too many of them have the same doleful quality. Jenkins’s time-honored re-use of themes and progressions (cyclical) also adds to the sense of stasis.

Jenkins’s claim in the program note that he used a “hip-hop” rhythm in the Dies Irae was off base. As a New Yorker, one hears hip-hop almost as an ambient accompaniment to daily life, and it wasn’t discernable here.

The haiku sections were some of the most imaginative and beautiful, in their combinations of Gregorian chant-like fragments with Jenkins’ customary procedures. There were some lovely stratospheric soprano descants floating above the crowd.

I’m not sure where the tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. was aside from the date of performance, on the federal holiday, but “the snow of yesterday” (which we haven’t had) flowed like “water once again” in this refined performance of a work that is sure to travel far and age well.

Martin Matalon, composer

Elena Klionsky, pianist 

Salome Jordania, piano II (Track 4)

Eve Payeur and Julián Macedo, percussionists;

David Adamcyck, sound designer (electronics)

Joel Sachs, conductor, the New Juilliard Ensemble (Track 1)

MSR Classics: MS 1789

As fans of contemporary classical music will want to take note (if they don’t already know), an exciting CD was released this year dedicated to music by Argentinian composer Martin Matalon (b. 1958, Buenos Aires) on the MSR Classics label. The CD has four tracks, all with pianist Elena Klionsky performing in a central role, first as concerto soloist (Track 1), then as solo pianist (Tracks 2 and 3), and then as Piano I in a mixed percussion/electronic ensemble (Track 4). The works are from a timespan of fourteen years of Mr. Matalon’s output (2000-2014), and the range of techniques and expressiveness is wide.

Martin Matalon has made a growing international reputation for himself through many genres including opera,  choreographic works, installations, concert music, and film scores. He has won numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2005, and he is currently the composition professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon. Organizations performing his works have included the Orchestre de Paris, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Orquesta de Barcelona y Catalunya, MusikFabrik (Cologne), and many other ensembles. His film scores have included one for the restored version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (commissioned by IRCAM) as well as three for surrealistic films of Luis Buñuel. 

It was at the Juilliard School in New York (while obtaining his Master of Music Degree) that Mr. Matalon met Elena Klionsky, a pianist who went on to play throughout the United States in recital, orchestral, chamber music, and duo-piano performances. In her native Russia, she has performed with leading orchestras including the Moscow State Symphony, St. Petersburg Camerata, Ural Philharmonic Orchestra, and Russian Federal Orchestra. Coming to the US, she was mentored for many years by Isaac Stern as well as at Juilliard (first in the Pre-College Division, later for BM and MM degrees). She was the first foreigner to open the annual Moscow Stars Festival in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory and has performed at the White House as part of its National Treasures event. 

For full disclosure, this reviewer was at Juilliard for several of the same years as Mr. Matalon and Ms. Klionsky but missed several decades of their careers since then. Having not seen Ms. Klionsky since school days and having remembered mostly personal attributes of sensitivity, delicacy, and a Romantic aura, I was not prepared for the playing of a tigress that emerged in several of this CD’s works! From relentless ostinato patterns and clangorous clusters to trills and soft coloristic effects, and everything in between, Ms. Klionsky shows that she is not to be limited to any one niche. Mr. Matalon, then a student of Vincent Persichetti, has also clearly forged his own paths, in a way that intertwines all the arts.

Poetry takes a role in Mr. Matalon’s first work on the CD, Trames IV: Concerto for Piano and Eleven Instruments (2001) with the New Juilliard Ensemble under Joel Sachs. As the composer writes, “The generic name ‘Trame’ is inspired by a poem of the same name by Jorge Luis Borges, which unveils for us the synchrony that exists among all elements constituting ‘universal history.’ Less ambitious and more circumscribed, my Trames evoke simply the ‘weaving’ proper to each composition, its ‘Ariadne thread.'” Despite its description as “less ambitious and more circumscribed” Trames IV is overwhelmingly complex in texture to the point of being dizzying. If one reads the very short Borges poem, La Trama,  telling of the attack on a gaucho in Buenos Aires and the eerie connection to  Julius Caesar’s betrayal 1900 years earlier, one can perhaps understand better the source of the harrowing, almost chaotic flight through time in this piece. Just to be clear, the word chaotic here is not meant to imply that the piece does not possess internal order, for though this listener failed to grasp the piece immediately in its entirety, it did seem oddly internally cohesive, as if a wrong note or beat would be easily apparent. 

At sixteen and a half minutes, Trames IV comprises five continuous movements. Though we are told of a prologue and epilogue and movements in between, there is no clear boundary from one to the next, a fact that seems appropriate to its themes of connectedness. Meanwhile, its mixtures of timbres, though using familiar instruments (strings, winds, brass, a full battery of percussion), create effects that sound completely new. As with combining flavors, it is an instance of the whole being “greater than the sum of its parts.” The expressiveness ranges from ominous and other-worldly to furious in its driving piano ostinato (think of the third movement of  Barber’s Piano Concerto, as if played on acid). Throughout it all, the pianist is part of the concertante texture, in which split-second timing is essential. One only wishes that this were a video recording, because the interaction had to be awe-inspiring at the live performance; it is remarkable, though, as it is. The liner notes state that this performance was recorded live at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, Lincoln Center with Robert Taibbi as the engineer. Though premiered in Paris in 2001, Musical America listed this performance (2010) as the US Premiere. We can so glad that it was preserved and is shared in this CD.

The next work (Track 2) is Artificios (2014) dedicated to Elena Klionsky, who gives it its World Premiere performance here (recorded in a private studio in New York by Dale Ashley). Just around seven minutes long, it also covers a wide range, particularly in tonal register. As Mr. Matalon writes, “My interest at the time I wrote Artificios was to create polarities through a single musical parameter. I chose to underline the importance of register: how the same lines employed in the two extremes of the piano would imply a totally different perception of the material and create polarities: density and lightness, black and white, opacity and crystalline. The lines are inhabited by trills, spirals, loops, chirping birds, cascades and repeated notes.” Ms. Klionsky handles all of these components with conviction, particularly the glassy treble repeated notes, and with an improvisatory feeling that must surely have pleased the composer.

The third work, Dos Formas del Tiempo (2000, roughly translated as “Two Forms of Time”) is perhaps the most accessible work of the CD, just over seven minutes and developing its toccata-like left-hand opening in increasing complexity, syncopation, and cluster chords with never a dull moment. As the composer describes the piece, the musical “objects” that populate it include “explosions, trills, sparkling, garlands, spirals, repeated notes or resonances.” There are long stretches of crystalline motifs in a high treble register that are so subtly varying that, even if one were not enamored of the piece itself (and it is far from “easy listening”), one has to admire the pianist for processing it all and projecting it with such polish. One never gets the sense that Mr. Matalon wrote for the ease of the pianist (or for any of the instruments for that matter), but out of an urge to expand the piano’s sonic capabilities into the evocative orchestral realm of say, film scores. In fact, throughout the entire CD, one found oneself constantly imagining what images and drama would accompany it all if paired with film.

The final work on the CD, La Makina (2007, premiered in 2008 at McGill University) has the greatest sonic variety of all, through the combination of two pianos (Salome Jordania joining Ms. Klionsky) in addition to percussionists Eve Payeur and Julián Macedo, with electronic sound by David Adamcyck. The composer’s description once again partially eludes this listener’s full understanding, including “the time polarity created by the use of ‘suspended time’ as opposed to ‘pulsed time’ and the premises of lightness and density created by the use of ‘frequency zones’ which are often poles apart.” That said, there is such an ear-tickling array of sounds from the percussion instruments and electronic effects, that one can appreciate it on that level alone. In around twenty-two minutes it builds to an absolutely nightmarish peak – including what sounds like the cracking of whips – and it is hard to miss the dramatic import on at least a basic level. The performances are impressive, as with the entire CD, and the recording, by Frédéric Prin at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Rueil Malmaison, France, is excellent as well. 

All in all, this CD represents a formidable achievement both for the composer and for the performers. Audiophiles, particularly contemporary music and electronic music buffs, will surely want a copy. As a bonus, those with the physical CD will appreciate the cover art (acrylic on canvas, 1994) entitled “Music” by Marc Klionsky, an especially meaningful depiction by the father of the talented Elena Klionsky.

Ian Hobson, piano

Tenri Cultural Institute, New York, NY

December 16, 2022

Strength and tenderness. Ian Hobson and Robert Schumann. As someone who uses words to describe music, I find myself at something of a loss how adequately to respond to Ian Hobson’s superb Schumann recital last night. Another installment in his “almost complete” presentation of the composer’s piano works, this one focused on the pieces that Schumann titled “Sonata” (except for No. 1) or movements that were originally conceived for a sonata and not used.

Mr. Hobson began with the single-movement Allegro in B minor, Op. 8, an early work (1831) dedicated to Baroness Ernestine von Fricken (also a student of Friedrich Wieck, she and Schumann were briefly engaged in 1834). Intended to serve as the first movement of a sonata, we know the other movements were at least sketched but forever lost, as the excellent program notes by the legendary Richard Dyer remind us. Its showy brilliance is reminiscent of Hummel, one of Schumann’s influences, as well as Paganini, who had just appeared with his devilish act in Leipzig. But the seriousness of the announcement of the “motto” theme B-C#-F#, is the real matter at hand. It unites the entire movement, appearing in the bass, or the top line melody, or middle-voice accompanimental figures, a token of Schumann’s obsessive study of counterpoint as well as scores by Beethoven, Schubert, and others. Mr. Hobson made this movement make musical sense. All of his virtues were present: a fearless virtuosity, but one that made ample room for the tender lyrical moments. Indeed one wonders why it isn’t performed more often, but it takes insight as well as fingers.

The rest of the first half was occupied with the multi-titled Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 14 (1836). It underwent revisions and contortions (1853, by Schumann, and posthumously by Brahms), being known as Concert(o) sans orchestre, and Grosse Sonate at different times. Mr. Hobson restored one of the cut Scherzo movements, and two variations in the middle movement. With hindsight and biographies, we know of the tortured romance between Schumann and Clara Wieck, a virtuoso pianist who was the daughter of Schumann’s piano and composition teacher. Since the father strenuously disapproved of the suitor, the lovers resorted to all sorts of clandestine messaging—for us, the most interesting are the musical “ciphers” or encoding of Clara’s name by Schumann. Usually a descending five- or six-note motto, it is a unifying device used often by the composer. The first movement boldly states it outright at the beginning, and it is in every movement. Mr. Hobson’s playing was so organized (I mean that as a compliment!) that I had time to think that perhaps Schumann’s obsessive study of counterpoint was his way of staving off the chaos in his mind. And of course, that lovely variation movement- no cipher needed here, the theme is by Clara (of course her melody also descends, through a fifth). The sonata was premiered in a salon, that of Henriette Voigt (the dedicatee of Sonata No. “2” see below), in September 1836, and is dedicated to Moscheles.

After intermission, Mr. Hobson presented the best-known work of the four on this program: the Sonata No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22 (1833-1835/1838). (Never mind the incoherent numbering of these sonatas.) Clara wrote to her future husband: “I love it just as I love you; it expresses your whole being with such clarity, and at the same time it’s not too incomprehensible.” However, she asked him to simplify the “far too difficult” last movement, for “even though I already understand it and will play it if need be, other people, the public, even professional musicians—those for whom one composes—won’t understand it at all.” Once again, Mr. Hobson handled the G minor frenzy in Schumann’s quick movements with absolute confidence. The late Schumann biographer John Daverio once contacted me: What did I think when Schumann’s tempo was So rasch wie möglich (as fast as possible) and then later the composer adds Noch rascher (faster still)? I replied that for me it represents striving for the unattainable. Whenever I attend a concert with some Schumann, I listen for this quality. Tonight, I heard it, the “almost” falling-off-the-edge rush. There was plenty of Eusebian dreaminess in the slow movement, a solo piano reworking of an 1828 song Im Herbste (In Autumn): “Be off with you, O sun,/Hurry away from here!/So that she might be warmed/By me alone!”

As a sort of built-in encore, Mr. Hobson offered the original finale conceived for the above G minor sonata: Presto passionato (1835), and wow, this is where I can’t possibly do justice to the powerful abandon he conveyed. It is probably a good thing that Schumann excised it from the sonata and replaced it—its symmetry is a bit square, barely masked by the extreme tempo, though it contains many metric ambiguities (probably what inspired Clara’s comments above).

There are two more Schumann/Hobson events this season in February and April. A word to the wise: Don’t miss them.

Éva Polgár, pianist

Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY

December 15, 2022

Éva Polgár made her second major Carnegie Hall appearance of the season this Thursday in a program entitled “Evocation” including some new and rarely heard Hungarian piano music at Weill Hall. Just a few weeks ago, on November 27, she had impressed this reviewer in a demanding program entitled “Carpathian Impressions” including collaborations with two other pianists at Zankel Hall (also reviewed in New York Concert Review: Carpathian Impressions in Review), but this concert was all solos. She is a powerhouse indeed, combining a winning stage presence, a flair for programming, and highly communicative playing.

Bearing the Hungary Foundation’s title of “Cultural Ambassador of the Year” Ms. Polgár has proven, through her study and performances of Bartok, Liszt, Kodaly, and newer composers, to be a strong advocate for the music of her native Hungary. In this most recent recital, there were important offerings by Franz Liszt and Zoltán Kodály (as she announced, Kodály’s 140th birthday was the next day, December 16th), but she also gave New York premieres of two newer works, one by Hungarian composer László Dubrovay (b. 1943) and one by Russian-born Arsentiy Kharitonov (b.1984), both of whom deserve to be better known here in the US.

Opening with Liszt’s soulful Sursum corda, the recital was off to an uplifting start (literally, with the Latin translation being “Lift up your hearts”). Ms. Polgar showed her gift for pacing and control as the music built from its quiet beginning to its peak. In the next piece, Le mal du pays (Homesickness), she impressed with her coloring of alternating soprano and tenor lines, which were appropriately haunting. It is said that when Liszt played, the music transcended the instrument such that “the piano disappeared,” and one always hopes for that sense in performances of his works. Ms. Polgár’s performance did weave a spell –  and only in one or two spots, where one wished for more seamless pedaling, did the complexity of the instrument itself reappear.

Les Jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este splashed all homesickness away in sparkling fingerwork, and Ms. Polgár was in her element. Often one hears the focus on one facet more than another – either more wash of pianism or more wringing of the harmonic beauty – but we were fortunate in her interpretation to hear it all.

Selections (Nos. 2, 3, and 4)  from Seven Piano Pieces, Op. 11 by Zoltán Kodály were a refreshing move to the twentieth century.  Composed from 1910 -18, they show a strong French influence, especially that of Debussy, following Kodaly’s visit to Paris. In the doleful No. 2 Székely lament, Kodaly uses changing meters, ties, fermatas, and frequent changes of tempo to achieve a parlando feeling, and a sympathetic interpreter is essential. Ms. Polgár was just that. She played with intense feeling and conviction, unruffled even by an extremely disruptive cellphone.

The third of the Kodaly set, It rains on the city, reflects even more French influence referring directly to Debussy’s 1887 setting of lines of Verlaine ” il pleure dans mon coeur comme il pleut sur la ville” from the Ariettes Oubliées (inspired as well by a similar line of Rimbaud). It was bewitching in Ms. Polgár’s rendition, with steady repeated piano “droplets” beating poignantly alongside melancholy melodic motifs. No. 4, Epitaph found her skillfully balancing its chant-like phrases against stony chordal accompaniment, closing the set with solemnity.

Kodály’s Dances of Marosszék (1927) brought the first half to a close in high energy. Rather neglected in live concerts, this work can be a tour de force but is hard to hold together with its rather disparate dances – plus considerable technical challenges, including some octaves that are perhaps not overtly showy but can be simply awkward. Ms. Polgár was more than up to the task, and her surrender to the moment gave a special inevitability to its transitions. The dreamy central section was meltingly beautiful. One hopes she keeps playing this, as it could become a signature piece.

After intermission came the two New York premieres and two more Liszt pieces. The first premiere was Hommage à Fellini (The Last Dream of the Clown) by László Dubrovay (2014). It opens with what sounds vaguely like the opening of Liszt’s Gnomenreigen heard through a haze of pedal. It progresses to a circus-like waltz which balloons into a style reminiscent of grand operatic paraphrases, with just enough dissonance to make all feel a bit “off” – as if Godowsky had been filtered through the aural equivalent of a funhouse mirror; obviously, with the title Hommage á Fellini and given Fellini’s filmography, that “off” feeling constitutes a success.  Naturally, there are hints of Nino Rota, composer for a multitude of Fellini soundtracks – and if there were not in such an homage, one would be shocked. Ms. Polgár handled it all with brilliance – and from memory, something one does not necessarily expect with contemporary works, but which certainly adds to the depth of the interpretation.

Between premieres, Liszt’s Concert Étude No. 2 in F minor (La leggierezza) was the perfect buffer – even if not this pianist’s best performance of the evening with minor momentary lapses. It was a good Romantic backdrop for the premiere of the more tonally adventurous Concert Etude Op. 44, No. 5 by pianist and composer Arsentiy Kharitonov. Mr. Kharitonov is an intriguing new presence on the musical scene, and his work as a pianist is undoubtedly helping him as a composer to create valuable new additions to the piano repertoire. Ms. Polgar (again without the score) handled this work’s arched shape with artistry  – from its quiet beginning to its blazing dissonant fireworks and back to its desolate close. Any composer is fortunate to have such an able advocate, and Mr. Kharitonov was present for a well-deserved bow.

Liszt’s Legende No. 2, St-François de Paule marchant sur les flots (St. Francis of Paulus walking over the waves) closed the program, strongly and with only minor “spillage” – hardly of concern as miracles take place. An enthusiastic audience gave Ms. Polgár a standing ovation and was rewarded with another piece composed by Mr. Kharitonov, Les Exercices Romantiques (for two fingers, one from each hand). Ms. Polgár quipped that she would just be using two fingers because she was “tired” – but her remarkable performance, sounding like ten fingers at least, suggested otherwise! Brava!

Da Capo Ensemble: Steven Beck, piano; Marianne Glythfeldt, clarinet/bass clarinet; Curtis Macomber, violin; (Chris Gross, cello); Patricia Spencer, flute

Guest artists: James Baker, conductor; Lois Martin, viola; Michael Nicolas, cello; Yoshi Weinberg, flute/bass flute

Tenri Cultural Institute, New York, NY

December 11, 2022

For more than 50 years, the Da Capo Chamber Players have stood for excellence in performance, commissioning, and dissemination of contemporary chamber music. They show no signs of stopping any time soon. At its helm, the only original member of the group, flutist Patricia Spencer, whose playing would be the envy of many younger artists. And if you’ve ever entered the labyrinth of grant writing… well, then you know the value of her persistence and contribution.

It was fitting that the opening work on their excellent, challenging program was Charles Wuorinen’s Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano (1983). Wuorinen resisted writing program notes, asking the listener to take the work on its own terms. He once said in an interview that all he wanted was for “people to pay attention” to his (or anyone’s) music, but that apparently contemporary audiences haven’t been taught to do so. That is definitely not an issue with Da Capo’s devoted following, in the intimate gallery space of the Tenri Cultural Institute.

The one-movement piece is roughly ten minutes long. The trio tosses ideas and statements back and forth, at times talking over each other, but no voice is lost in the conversation. Curtis Macomber, Michael Nicolas, and Steven Beck were superb. By the way, cellist Michael Nicolas was a last-minute substitute for the ensemble’s regular cellist Chris Gross. Mr. Nicolas had a huge responsibility in learning this complex program, but we must remember that he is a member of the famed Brooklyn Rider and the International Contemporary Ensemble.

Amy Williams’s First Lines (2006) is a collection of eleven miniatures, each influenced by the first line(s) of a different poem, which require both the flutist and pianist to perform extended techniques. The poets are Marilyn Chin, Toi Derricotte, Patricia Goedicke, Colleen McElroy, and Olga Sedakova. Yoshi Weinberg and Steven Beck created haunting, specific atmospheres, and a stunning variety of sounds. I certainly appreciate program music, but I guess I have an issue with pieces for which it takes longer to read the program note than to hear the actual piece. If this work had no title(s), would it have been any less appreciable? (See Wuorinen, above.) After all, the poetry served to activate feelings within Ms. Williams, which were then turned into music. Just a lingering question I pose from time to time.

The first half concluded with Mario Davidovsky’s Quartetto No. 4 (2005), for string trio plus clarinet (Marianne Glythfeldt, Curtis Macomber, Lois Martin, Michael Nicolas). Davidovsky earned much renown for his use of electronics, so it was refreshing to hear an “acoustic” work, though of course all music is acoustic by definition. Motivic unity was easy to follow, largely because of the expert playing. The work doesn’t shout, rather it shines. Strings begin somewhat mysteriously, then the clarinet enters, more melodically, and the ensemble tries various strategies to coalesce, but the essential differences between strings and clarinet can only be appreciated, not overcome.

After intermission, the five core members of Da Capo (Ms. Glythfeldt, Ms. Spencer, Mr. Macomber, Mr. Beck, with substitute Mr. Nicolas) took the stage for Robert Martin’s Nighttime, the “senior” work on the program, from 1979. It seems like a long time ago but sounds as fresh as if it had been created last year. A one-movement nocturne, it appears to evoke shadows created (perhaps) by firelight. Sonorities were perfectly melded between clarinet, flute, and strings. Martin’s aims were to find a musical transposition of the art of Arshile Gorky and respond to the Armenian holocaust. It is not up to me to determine Martin’s worth. That speaks for itself. I do believe he achieved his aim of “wholeness and presence” in this work.

Lei Liang’s Gobi Canticle (2004) is part of a series of compositions that grew out the composer’s admiration for Mongolian music. Its melodic material is based on another work, Gobi Polyphony. The melody is played against its own inversion and alludes to various genres of Mongolian music. Here, the violin/cello duo of Mr. Macomber and Mr. Nicolas was ravishing, creating what I believe was my favorite work of the evening. The moods were meditative and evocative.

Finally, After Serra (2000), by Jason Eckardt, employed the full sextet, and conductor James Baker. This work seeks an equivalent in music for another art form, in this case the monumental metal sculpture shapes of Richard Serra. If you live in New York, you may recall how much trouble Serra’s Tilted Arc caused when it was installed in lower Manhattan. (Eventually, it was removed, cut into three sections, and placed in a warehouse.) Mr. Eckardt senses an imminent, potential danger in Serra and desires to create a similar instability with his music, and I daresay he succeeds. I’m not even sure that with this excellent ensemble, it needed to be conducted. The music surged and receded, then crashed, and relaxed, but not in a way that invited stability. The composer, in attendance, received his generous, well-deserved ovation.

There are two more concerts in the Da Capo season: Women and Jazz in February; and Young Composers Abound III in June. Don’t miss them!