MetLife Foundation Music of the Americas Concert Series in Review

Stephanie Griffin, viola, Cheryl Seltzer, piano
Music of Brady, Greenbaum, Babbitt, Milhaud, Pärt, and Shostakovich
Americas Society; New York, NY
March 20, 2012
 
Stephanie Griffin and Cheryl Seltzer

Stephanie Griffin and Cheryl Seltzer; Photo Credit: Hiroyuki Ito

 
 

 

Stephanie Griffin, violist and founding member of the Momenta Quartet, and Cheryl Seltzer, pianist, founder, and co-director of the internationally renowned group Continuum, joined forces recently in recital at the Americas Society. This pairing of two intelligent and sensitive musicians led to dynamic and thought-provoking performances. Billed as featuring an homage to Milton Babbitt, I found the concept of the entire program to be an homage by performers and composers to those who touched their lives. In the extensive program notes, Ms. Seltzer writes of her friendship and admiration for Babbitt, her teacher Milhaud, and the honor of having premiering a Pärt work with the composer present.  Ms. Griffin writes of her close friendship with Greenbaum, and Shostakovich’s tribute to Beethoven. This information gave the performances special meaning, and the performers demonstrated the sincerity of their words by their passionate playing of the works.

“Three or Four Days After the Death of Kurt Cobain” by Canadian composer Tim Brady (b. 1956) opened the program. This work brought to this listener’s mind the “Love-Death” music of George Crumb’s “Makrokosmos”, with “Smells like Teen Spirit” taking the place of Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu. The passing of the thematic material between the two players was done seamlessly and made what might have seemed an odd idea very effective. “Double Song for Viola Sola: In memoriam Milton Babbitt” from Matthew Greenbaum (b.1950) followed.  This work could be described as two voices speaking simultaneously, one voice quiet and the other much more assertive.  Ms. Griffin took this ingenious concept and gave an assured performance, capturing clearly the distinctive voices and making child’s play of the technical demands. I’m sure Babbitt would have heartily approved of the piece and the performance.

Written in 1950, eight years before his famous (and controversial) article “Who Cares if You Listen?”in High Fidelity magazine, Milton Babbitt’s “Composition for Viola and Piano” is a piece very much worth hearing. Babbitt (1916-2011), the mathematician, used permutations of various intervals in a colorful manner, with mercurial interplay of ideas between the viola and the piano. This is a work of equals, and the performers were outstanding–both as individuals and as a duo. Played with energy and commitment, this performance was a highlight of the evening and should serve as an impetus for the audience members to explore further Babbitt works.

“Quatre Visages”, written in 1943 by Darius Milhaud (1892-1974), is a musical depiction of four imaginary ladies in different locales. Ms. Griffin and Ms. Seltzer captured the jazzy charm of “La Californienne” (which one should note had a distinct French flavor), the mournful outlook of the time in “La Bruxelloise”, and the jaunty optimism of “La Parisienne”.  I found “The Wisconsonian” to be more frenetic than the “bustling” that the program notes suggested, but this was my only reservation in an otherwise delightful performance.

After intermission, Ms. Seltzer played Arvo Pärt’s “For Alina”, a short piece written for a young Estonian girl. Pärt (b.1935), after abandoning serial and other modern techniques, adopted an approach that he refers to as “tintinnabuli”.  “For Alina” was one of his first works in this new style. While not technically demanding in a virtuosic sense, it nonetheless requires considerable skill for the performer to produce the bell-like sound without a harsh percussiveness. Ms. Seltzer gave a brief performance (the performer often repeats the 15 bars of written music ad lib.) that showed her complete involvement and attentiveness to the finest of details.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), like Mahler before him, wrote music with strong autobiographical meaning and content. His final work, the Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147–written in the last year of his life–is no exception. This masterpiece could be considered Shostakovich’s final ‘letter’ to the world, which was only ‘read’ in its entirety after his death.  Ms. Griffin and Ms. Seltzer gave a performance to remember; one could sense that the aura of Shostakovich himself was in the room guiding the players.  The biting, sarcastic, and grotesque were all there, along with the quiet despair and the poignant. The finale, which has elements of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”, was said by Shostakovich himself to be in memory of Beethoven.  Ms. Griffin’s and Ms. Seltzer’s persuasive playing did honor to the final musical words of a great composer. The audience responded with well-deserved and extended applause, calling the performers back for multiple bows. One trusts that Ms. Griffin and Ms. Seltzer will pair up often in the future; both are wonderful musicians and make a dynamic duo.

Share
by Jeffrey Williams  for New York Concert Review; New York, NY

Continuum in Review

Continuum in Review
Northern Exposures II: Canadian New Music—The Trailblazers
Americas Society
December 13, 2010 

Left to right: R. Murray Schafer, John Weinzweig, Ann Southam, Claude Vivier, Barbara Pentland, Gilles Tremblay, Diana McIntosh

In the second concert of a series featuring Canadian music, Continuum went back into time to present music from an older generation (works mostly from the 70’s and 80’s) and entitled the program “The Trailblazers”.  (The first concert in this series featured Canada’s more contemporary composers.) This program—like the first—did not disappoint, as the music was gripping, daring or sweetly pastoral; and it was once again varied, enlightening and well-prepared.

The concert opened with harpist Bridget Kibbey’s magnificent performance of R. Murray Schafer’s “The Crown of Ariadne”. The work, which asks the harpist to play percussion in addition to the usual duties, was as captivating as the performance itself; it was innovative from start to finish. Barbara Pentland’s Caprice for solo piano was short but sweet—superbly rendered by pianist Cheryl Seltzer. Next on the program was John Weinzweig’s monumental “Trialogue” for soprano, flute and piano. Although composed without any sense of real tonality (whispers, laughter and shrieking abound), this entertaining theater piece laced with psychological undercurrents engages the audience as well as a classic Broadway show. The audience loved the performance, which was presented in a memorable comic-dramatic style by soprano Mary Mackenzie, flutist Fiona Kelly and Pianist Joel Sachs.

Ann Southam, who sadly passed away about two weeks prior to this performance, wrote a haunting piano quintet seemingly in her own memory, as its hypnotic and tender opening piano chords seem to ring in eternity. Seltzer did a lovely job of letting the music speak simply and lie in its own serenity. The work fades repeatedly as it began, but in the middle, the string writing is contrapuntally complex, and violist Stephanie Griffin, violinists Renee Jolles and David Fulmer, and cellist Claire Bryant played with technical finesse and commitment.

Diana McIntosh’s appealing and more conventional “Nanuk” was a workout for violist Griffin—who played it with conviction and superb command of the instrument, while Gilles Tremblay’s “Cedres en voiles—Threne pour le liban” is much more cutting edge modernity—with marvelous effects for the solo cello. It was played brilliantly by Bryant. Claude Vivier’s “Pulau dewata” for variable ensemble—this time in an arrangement for piano trio by Henry Kucharzyk—is completely original in concept and material.

With this marvelous program of Canadian composers, Continuum has once again proven that we should be more and more exposed to the music of the North.

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

Continuum

Continuum
Canadian Music – The New Individualists
Americas Society, New York, NY
December 8, 2009

In the first concert of its 44th New York season, Continuum did one of the things it does best: explore important, talented composers who are relatively unknown in this country. Music of Canada was presented in a program entitled “Northern Exposures: Canadian Music—The New Individualists.”  I came away from this program thinking that Canadian composers are indeed unique and tend to go their separate ways.

This concept of originality was exemplified by the U.S. Premiere of Paul Frehner’s deceivingly-titled work, Slowdown, from 2004. It’s a brilliantly-written, frenzied trio for not just one pianist, not two, but yes, three pianists at one keyboard. The idea of three pianists sitting together is pretty inventive, but the way he slows the momentum of the piece into a kind of improvisatory state is where the real imagination lies. The Other recently composed U.S. premieres that backed-up the Canadian individualist theory were Ana Sokolovic’s portrait parle for piano trio, an original and inspired work depicting the physiognomy of the face; Jocelyn Morlock’s Curvilinear  uniquely scored piece for solo accordion, inspired by ancient folk music; and Michael Oesterle’s Sunspot Letters, a first-rate work that evokes Galileo’s writings.

New York Premieres included Linda Catlin Smith’s Mois qui tremblais from 1999, a hypnotic, profound work for violin, bass drum, and piano in which the musicians perform from an annotated text of Rimbaud. Andrew Staniland’s Blue (2008), is a poignant work based on a poem by Walt Whitman; Tajikistan-born Farangis Nurulla-Khoja’s Blind Flower, written for Continuum in 2008, draws up highly original musical tone colors; and Melissa Hui’s Wish You Were Here (2003), is an Asian-inspired meditation for flute, cello, percussion, and piano that was beautifully exotic and memorable.

The perennial top-of-the-line artists included the pianists and co-directors Cheryl Seltzer and Joel Sachs, violinist Renee Jolles, clarinetist Moran Katz, the flutist Ulla Suokko, mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer, William Schimmel on accordion, oboist Toni Marie Marchioni, violist Stephanie Griffin, cellist Karen Ouzounian, percussionist Jared Soldiviero, and pianist Shahan Arzruni.

This free concert is without a doubt one of the greatest musical holiday gifts to New Yorkers. We learned more about Canadian composers and Canada itself, but also were enchanted and enlightened by the beauty, excitement and great diversity of Canadian music.

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