MSR Classics presents Song of the Redwood-Tree: The Music of Sunny Knable in Review
Elizabeth Pitcairn, violin; Barbara
Podgurski, piano
Trio Cabrini: Nuno Antunes, clarinet and bass clarinet; Gina Cuffari, bassoon
and voice; Vlada Yaneva, piano and accordion
Stefanie Izzo, soprano; Scott Pool, bassoon; Natsuki Fukasawa, piano
Parhelion Trio: Sarah Carrier, flute; Ashleé Miller, clarinet; Andrea Christie, piano
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York, NY
May 31, 2022
This concert, rescheduled from March 2020 due to that virus, is a celebration of Sunny Knable’s second album. The audience in Weill Recital Hall was the largest I have seen since the resumption of nearly-normal concert life last year. Mr. Knable, the music director of Forest Hills’ (NY) The Church in the Gardens, clearly inspires devotion and friendship in his congregation. An affable fellow, he personally greeted nearly everyone before the concert, making his way through the hall; and his verbal commentary was engaging.
I can report that Mr. Knable is a creator of accessible, attractive, well-crafted works—at their best when they explore rapid, rhythmic textures, with exciting interchange among the parts. A few minor quibbles will be mentioned below, but nothing too worrisome. I can also state that the caliber of all the performers was excellent, fiercely enthusiastic at all times, and in total command of their many and varied responsibilities.
The concert opened with The Green Violin, a pun on the “red” violin, a seventeenth century Stradivarius instrument that inspired a 1998 movie. (Was the violin really varnished with the maker’s dead wife’s blood?) The “Red Mendelssohn” that inspired the screenplay was made in the eighteenth century, and while not the actual mysterious violin, is currently owned by Elizabeth Pitcairn, the excellent soloist here, partnered by Barbara Podgurski on piano, in a brief but effective Irish melodic fantasy. Also, I was pleased to note that the piano was on “full stick” for the entire concert, though that led to a few balance problems later in the evening.
Next came a New York premiere titled …the Place of Longing, inspired by Richard Elliott’s 2010 book: Fado and the Place of Longing: Loss, Memory and the City, describing the Portuguese music of absence and longing. The innovative Trio Cabrini includes a singing bassoonist (Gina Cuffari), and an accordion playing pianist (Vlada Yaneva), as well as Nuno Antunes on clarinet/bass clarinet. Ms. Cuffari and Ms. Yaneva clapped energetically as well, and Ms. Cuffari engaged in some wordless sighing that seemed slightly extraneous to me, the music was strong enough without it. Mr. Knable combines Portuguese song and Bulgarian rhythms skillfully.
To round out the first half, Song of the Redwood-Tree, a 2012 work on poetry by Walt Whitman, featured Stefanie Izzo, soprano; Scott Pool, bassoon; and the excellent pianist Natsuki Fukasawa (Mr. Pool’s regular partner in duo). As this concert was postponed from 2020, they couldn’t possibly have known how fortuitous it was that Whitman was born on May 31 (1819), but it added a layer of resonance. Mr. Knable’s work, in three sections based on portions of the first and second divisions of Whitman’s long cycle, seeks to express musically some of the references in the poem. Ms. Izzo, possessing a full lyric soprano, handled the demands of the voice part (originally written for someone else) with confidence and feeling, though her consonants were not vivid enough to project in the hall. Part of the blame for this must be laid with Mr. Knable, whose use of extremely high registers makes it that much more difficult to understand this poetic masterpiece; we are not in the world of opera, after all (though even there I’d prefer to understand the words), but vocal chamber music. The setting of the tree’s ‘death-chant’ was histrionic. Mr. Knable also repeated (even sometimes changed) text wantonly (a pet peeve of mine though all the great composers did it at one time or another)—Whitman’s text is already so rich musically that it scarcely needs that type of amplification. In addition, the intrepid Mr. Pool and Ms. Fukasawa had to stamp their feet loudly and engage in Mr. Knable’s signature wordless vocalises. The depiction of the horns of ships leaving San Francisco harbor with the plundered riches of California was breathtaking.
After intermission came the world premiere of Tenacity, in which the composer encapsulates his experience of the pandemic in New York. Seven brief sections, whose titles all begin with the letter s, span from the 24/7 sound of sirens in the streets of New York, all the way to the recent (though tenuous) rebound of hope. However, I must chide Mr. Knable for the title “Six O’clock Clapping,” for every New Yorker knows that this happened at 7:00 pm. every night for many months. The excellent Parhelion Trio (flute, clarinet, piano) played it as though it was many years’ versed in it (Sarah Carrier, flute; Ashleé Miller, clarinet; and pianist Andrea Christie).
The concert concluded with The Busking Bassonist, co-commissioned by tonight’s wonderful Scott Pool, partnered again by Natsuki Fukasawa. Depicting some stages in the life of an itinerant musician in New York, it began with the pianist on stage, nervously looking at her watch because her partner was late. Mr. Pool entered humorously through the audience, and the duo began their set in a subway station. The depiction of the approaching train, on whose passengers their livelihood depends, was spot on. In Park-Bench Ballad, Mr. Pool not only had to play his instrument but embody a random park bench sitter, reading a newspaper aloud (which contained, for me, some very unfortunate references to the recent mass shootings in the US, and an editorial from the New York Times), then the pianist also had her share of reading, this time from a book. Her voice was mostly covered by the bassoon line. This segued into the final section Street Changes, a wild, energetic romp of New York energy, playing into Mr. Knable’s strength with fast rhythmic interest. May I also mention that pianist Ms. Fukasawa had to play a melodica mouth-keyboard, which she did with great poise (and breath).
After a warm ovation, Mr. Knable took the stage to perform one of his delicate piano solos (with vocalise), dedicated to his wife: Chanson de la lumière (from Cartes postales de suisse).
Mr. Knable’s “sunny” disposition will always allow him to find friends, especially among talented performers, and those whose lives he touches as a musical leader and teacher. As Whitman said, “Do anything, but let it produce joy.”
Frank Daykin for New York Concert Review; New York, NY
