Classical Music

Classical Music, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Lincoln Center, Music Events, New York, Orchestral

NY Philharmonic: Unpacking the fall season for new music lovers

György Ligeti with100 metronomes
György Ligeti with100 metronomes

When you see New York Philharmonic’s glossy brochures and online ads, you might be hard pressed to spot the new music offerings that are in nearly every program. For instance, “Trifonov Plays Schumann” hides the fact that there is a work for strings by the Lithuanian composer Raminta Šerkšnytė, a composition which Gidon Kremer referred to as “the calling card of Baltic music.”

I mentioned this in passing to a staffer at the Philharmonic, and referred to it as a slam on marketing. I immediately regretted uttering that phrase, because it’s not really about that. Marketing managers do what they need to – it’s their job to sell tickets. Schumann sells, Šerkšnytė does not.

Here is my annotation of this fall’s Philharmonic concerts for the tiny niche of new music fans.

September 29-October 1, 2023 “Joshua Bell, Copland, and The Elements”

This program description does in fact put the featured player of the new work front and center. On the other hand, you have to dig deeper to discover the fact that “The Elements” is a US premiere, and is a compilation of new works by five living American composers (Jake Heggie, Jennifer Higdon, Edgar Meyer, Jessie Montgomery, and Kevin Puts).

Footnote: brought to my attention by the illustrious Steve Smith in his Night After Night newsletter, you can watch a video of the world premiere of this work, available til October 1, here (courtesy of The Violin Channel’s VC Live).

October 5-7 “Beethoven’s Emperor, Schubert’s Unfinished, and Steve Reich”

Here we DO get a clue right away about Steve Reich. Yay! Only needs a bit of clicking to learn that it’s a world premiere co-commissioned by the NY Phil.

October 11 -14 “Trifonov Plays Schumann”

The aforementioned “calling card of Baltic music” is on offer: “De profundis” by the Lithuanian composer  Raminta Šerkšnytė.

October 19 – 21 “Bronfman, Brahms, and Ligeti”

Ligeti makes it onto the headline, yay! But deeper in the description is the fact that we get to hear Yefim Bronfman plays the New York premiere of a concerto written for him by the Russian-born Elena Firsova.

October 26 “Kravis Nightcap: Apollo’s Fire”

Jeannette Sorrell directs the Philharmonic in the Handel epic, “Israel in Egypt” – – and also brings her great early music band Apollo’s Fire to a late night show. I’m pointing this out because – while its not contemporary music, their unusual program explores music of ancient Jewish and Arabic origin with virtuosos on violin, Middle Eastern flute, oud, zither, and percussion.

October 27 “Sound On: Zorn, Azmeh, Chaker, and Chin”

If you’re hot on new music, you’ve already got this on your calendar. Music by John Zorn and Unsuk Chin, and a NYP co-commission by Kinan Azmeh and Layale Chaker.

November 2-4 “Mälkki Conducts Pictures at an Exhibition”

We can count Ligeti as new music, right? He’s only been gone for 15 years. This year, everyone including NYP is celebrating his centennial. And so now you know you’ll hear his Piano Concerto played by Pierre-Laurent Aimard.

November 4 “Kravis Nightcap: Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Joachim Kühn”

PLA teams with jazz pianist Joachim Kühn, and they’ll use Ligeti’s Études as a jumping off point for improvision.

November 7 “Artist Spotlight: Pierre-Laurent Aimard”

Since we’re counting Ligeti above, here’s PLA playing the Etudes, “juxtaposed with works reflecting their cultural inspirations” (not sure what exactly that means, but I’m sold).

November 9 – 12 “Szeps-Znaider Plays Beethoven’s Violin Concerto”

The thirty-something composer Carlos Simon is one hot item lately, and you’ll get to hear his “Fate Now Conquers”, which was inspired by something Beethoven wrote in his journal.

November 16 – 18 “Paavo Järvi Conducts Britten and Prokofiev”

You’ll get to a chance to determine whether Veljo Tormis (who died in 2017) lives up to the reputation of excellence in Estonian composers, when you hear his Overture No. 2 on this program.

November 22 – 25 “The Planets and Atmosphères”

Though she died 50 years ago, we hardly ever get to hear music by the African-American composer Julia Perry. You will on this program (her Stabat Mater). Also, more Ligeti (I’m not complaining!).

November 30 – December 02 “Strauss, Rachmaninoff, and Bryce Dessner”

Bryce Dessner makes it onto the headline!  The NY premiere of his concerto for 2 pianos, written for, and played by the Labèque sisters.

by Gail Wein
CD Review, Classical Music, File Under?, Piano

Su Yeon Kim – Mozart Recital (CD Review)

Mozart Recital

Su Yeon Kim

Steinway & Sons CD

 

During her studies, pianist Su Yeon Kim has kept Mozart close. She studied for a decade at Mozarteum University, won first prize at the Concours international de Montréal in 2021 and second place in the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg. Kim has lived for some time in Salzburg. In 2023, she will also reconnect with her hometown Seoul as Artist-in-Residence of Kumho Art Hall. 

 

For her Steinway & Sons Mozart Recital, Kim plays two sonatas and a number of smaller pieces, some obscure and seldom performed. Even in these latter works, her artistry makes a strong case for their relevance to Mozart’s legacy. Eine Kleine Gigue, which opens the recording, is filled with thorny counterpoint and syncopations, which the pianist imparts with fleet zest. The Allegro in G minor is also delivered at a quick pace, but with clarity in every motive and passage.

 

 Four of the Twelve Contredanses for Count Czernin are presented in a variety of tempos with elegant ornamentation. Variations on “Unser dummer Pöbel meint” is a substantial set. Kim outlines the original theme with forceful clarity, accompanying it in assured fashion with countermelodies and passagework, in later variations never obscuring the tune’s mutable game of hide and seek. Her rendition of Adagio in B minor is poignant, employing rubato to good effect, as does her performance of Franz Liszt’s transcription of Ave Verum Corpus.

 

Kim plays two sonatas, Sonata No. 9 in D and Sonata No. 12 in F Major. Her tempos are well-selected and use of embellishment judicious and executed with finesse. The D major sonata is enthusiastically imbued with the con spirito marked in the first movement. The Andante con espressione is played tenderly, with lovely dynamic shadings. Kim’s playful interpretation of rubato lends to the Rondo finale’s appeal, as do the whirling dance rhythms and quick scalar passages. The Sonata in F is played with as much drama as its relatively compact framework will hold, each of the motives unfurling like a miniature aria. The second movement Adagio is not taken too slowly, and is played with suavity. The Rondo finale shows off Kim’s considerable chops, as well as the joyous demeanor with which this whole program is played. Recommended. 

 

  • Christian Carey
by Christian Carey
Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, Events, Music Events, New York

Where’s the Music? A Guide (New York Edition)

At a TIME:SPANS concert at DiMenna Center this summer, I sat next to a gentleman who asked me, “How do you find out about concerts like this one?”

It used to be easy, but…..over the past decade or so we’ve seen the demise of New York Times’ “Guide to the Lively Arts”, Time Out New York‘s extensive performing arts listings, and The New Yorker’s classical and opera Goings On Around Town section decimated to a mere one or two events per issue.

I have long wanted to create a classical events calendar for New York City, but my own limited resources (time, money) have made that project impractical. What I CAN offer is this list of terrific sites:

  1. Live Music Project – LMP launched in 2014 as a Seattle-only classical calendar service, and expanded a couple of years ago to cover the entire United States. It is largely events that are posted by the presenters or artists themselves, so its level of comprehensiveness depends on the community.
  2. New Music Calendar – launched and maintained by composer Todd Tarantino. A no-frills but fairly comprehensive listing of contemporary classical music events in New York
  3. Extended Techniques – Co-founded by musicologists Oksana Nesterenko and Alex Minkin, the main purpose of the site is a podcast series about contemporary music, but the well-maintained monthly concert listing is the most informative part of the site
  4. New York Classical Review – Primarily a site with well-written concert reviews, NYCR also posts a curated, linear list of events
  5. New Music USA – A user-posted events calendar of new music around the country
  6. Club Free Time – A listing of free performing arts events in New York, as well as films, walking tours and other free things to do. Detailed information is by subscription.
  7. Go Out! The List: A highly curated weekly performing arts list, heavy on new music, distributed by subscription newsletter (there are both free and paid versions). Each event listed is paired with a bar or restaurant recommendation.

I hope these resources get you to where you want to go this season.

Have I missed any major calendars? Let me know in the comments section below.

by Gail Wein
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, New York, Strings, Violin

TIME:SPANS Hits Calder and other hard surfaces August 12-26, 2023 at Dimenna Center

Earle Brown’s Calder Piece performed at the Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, August 1967

I don’t know when else you’d have a chance to see expert musicians interact with a sculpture by one of the most iconic American artists of the 20th century.  This rare event, on August 20 at the Dimenna Center in New York, is part of the annual TIME:SPANS festival.

In Earle Brown’s Calder Piece the artist’s mobile is an essential part of the piece. The artwork will “conduct” the Talujon Percussion Quartet as its sections sway from their pivot points. And, yes, you will also get to see the instrumentalists “play” the sculpture, though the artist himself initially expected a more forceful display. “I thought that you were going to hit it much harder—with hammers,” said Calder after the first performance in the early 1960s.

Calder Piece is “the focal point and central hinge of this year’s festival,” according to the introduction in the festival booklet by Thomas Fichter and Marybeth Sollins, executive director and trustee respectively of The Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust which produces and presents TIME:SPANS. But it is by no means the only highlight of the dozen concerts in the festival.

Talea Ensemble, JACK Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Argento…..once again, since 2015, some of the most acclaimed contemporary music ensembles in the country descend on the Dimenna Center for this late summer aural spectacle. Performances are nearly every night August 12 – 26, chock full of 21st century concert music in a myriad of styles.

It seems almost impossible to pick out highlights from the dozen performances – there are so many intriguing programs. In addition to the Calder event, here are a few that I am particularly looking forward to:

JACK Quartet playing Helmut Lachenmann (August 13) – my mind was blown the first time I heard Lachenmann’s music performed live. He calls his compositions musique concrète instrumentale, creating other-worldly sounds through extended techniques.

Jack Quartet
JACK Quartet photo by Beowulf Sheehan

Ekmeles performing Taylor Brook, Hannah Kendall and Christopher Trapani (August 22) – though vocal music isn’t my first choice genre, I am drawn to a cappella ensembles, especially when they are as high quality as Ekmeles. Trapani’s music is always a treat to hear, and his End Words lives alongside music by the equally deserving Kendall and Brook.

Ensemble Signal’s program on August 15 is brought to you by the letter “A”: music by Anahita Abbasi, Augusta Read Thomas. Aida Shirazi, Agata Zubel. I’ve been following Abbasi ever since she won an ASCAP composer award about eight years ago. Her music, though not always easy to listen to, is intense and visceral. I predict it will be a great contrast to Read Thomas’s more tuneful style.

Information and tickets at https://timespans.org/program/

by Gail Wein
Boston, Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, July 29, 2023 (Review)

Photo: Hilary Scott.

Boston Symphony Orchestra, Dima Slobodeniouk, conductor

Avery Amereau, mezzo-soprano

July 29, 2023

 

LENOX – This year’s Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood spotlighted female composers. Four created self-curated concerts, and others were featured on BSO concerts. Agata Zubel’s In the Shade of an Unshed Tear, originally composed for the Seattle Symphony, was on the program Saturday night in the Shed. Before its performance, conductor Dima Slobodeniouk talked briefly with Zubel onstage. Prominent among their remarks were the stipulations of the original commission. Seattle was pairing Zubel’s piece with works by Beethoven and wanted her to compose for a classical-sized ensemble, with only timpani for percussion. Slobodeniouk pointed out that new pieces in Europe are generally for a much larger orchestra. Zubel acknowledged that the commission was a challenge. 

 

With In the Shade of an Unshed Tear, the composer rose to the challenge. The timpani began the piece with thunderous attacks, the orchestra following in kind, creating a fortissimo sound that tested the boundaries of a classical-sized ensemble. Zubel employed glissandos grouped among the strings at a lower dynamic level. Still, the fortissimo material seemed inevitable to win out. In a swerve, a denouement followed by the timpani playing pianissimo proved an interesting and organic ending. 

 

Olivier Messiaen’s Les Offrandes oubliêes is a relatively early piece. It is surprising how much of the composer’s musical language was in place by the time he was in his twenties. An ascending mixed-interval scale serves as the principal theme. At the time, the composer was studying Rite of Spring and this is reflected in more rigorous passages that contrast the beguiling melodic ascent.

 

Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard was indisposed and Avery Amereau substituted for her as the soloist in Hector Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été. With a beautiful, round tone throughout all registers from chest voice to high notes, Amereau’s voice was well-suited to the considerable demands of Berlioz’s half-hour long song cycle. Slobodeniouk and she had a few mild coordination challenges, but these were well worth the flexibility of their interpretation.

 

Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2 is one of the composer’s finest orchestra pieces. Orchestrated with a deft hand for colorful, abundant contrasts, it encompasses sequences of delicate impressionist harmonies and neoclassical dancing rhythms, with powerful swells at climatic moments that bring the whole orchestra to bear. Slobodeniouk conducted the BSO with verve, urging them to make the most of tutti crescendos while also making ample room for solo passages. The orchestra played with precision throughout and abandon whenever appropriate. It was a satisfying, frequently inspiring evening. 

 

  • Christian Carey
by Christian Carey
Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Lincoln Center, New York, Review

Turangalila at New York Philharmonic / Nightcap with Gamelan Dharma Swara

Just before the NY Philharmonic concert began playing Turangalila by Olivier Messiaen at David Geffen Hall on Saturday, the stranger sitting next to me asked if I thought he would like it. I told him it’s very different and very thrilling. Just keep an open mind.

For classical music enthusiasts of a certain ilk, a performance of Turangalila is a hotly anticipated special occasion. It doesn’t get performed all that often, perhaps because it requires additional personnel on stage (ten percussionists!), it takes up an entire program, AND you have to find an ondes martenot (an early 20th century electronic instrument) and someone to play it.  Although it was written nearly 80 years ago, it still sounds radical.

Hearing the Philharmonic perform the 80 minute piece, led by Jaap van Zweden with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Cynthia Millar playing ondes martenot, was indeed a thrill. The music is full of contrasts, which the Philharmonic’s musicians brought out well. Sweet winds, acerbic brass, sharply staccato percussion and thunderous tympani. And that was just in the Introduction, the first of ten movements. By the end of Turangalila II, the seventh section, the ensemble was whipped into a frenzy, the music resolving into a massive major chord in a flourish of brass, strings and winds. Throughout the work, every section of the orchestra was used to maximum potential, practically a concerto for orchestra.

During the long and wildly enthusiastic ovation, the gentleman next to me turned to me and said he liked it! He described it as Holst fighting against Stravinsky, with Bartok poking at them. That sounded pretty accurate to me.

After the performance, I lingered in Geffen Hall’s lobby, sipping a cappuccino and admiring the sizeable crowd in a post-concert schmooze – a new experience since the recent renovation now boasted a comfortable space with generous seating and a cash bar that was still open after the concert.

Gamelan Dharma Swara at Lincoln Center (credit Gail Wein)
Gamelan Dharma Swara at Lincoln Center (credit Gail Wein)

Next, I planned to attend the Philharmonic’s “Nightcap” concert, scheduled for 10:30 pm in the Sidewalk Studio, an intimate space created during the 2022 renovation of the building.  Performing in this small space was Gamelan Dhamra Swara, a New York-based Balinese gamelan ensemble. The musicians gathered around two dozen gendèr (Indonesian xylophones), with four suling (flute) players and a couple of performers at drums and gongs. From the first rhythmic clanks of metal on metal, I was taken back to 2010, when I travelled with group to Bali (and filed this report on NPR).

It’s a lot of noise for the small space, and the sound of the percussion was loud and visceral. Once I got past the ear-pounding volume, the effect was mesmerizing. Through several selections, some modern, some traditional, the group showed off its musical mettle, along with performances by two dancers clad in ornate traditional costumes. Through the floor to ceiling windows looking out over Broadway, I could see passersby stopping to listen, gaze over the line of taxis on the street and hear the sirens of the inevitable emergency vehicles.

by Gail Wein
CD Review, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Contemporary Classical, File Under?

Renaud Capuçon and Martha Argerich on DG (CD Review)

Beethoven, Schumann, Franck

Renaud Capuçon, violin; Martha Argerich, piano

Deutsche Grammophon

 

Three violin sonatas by great nineteenth century composers, all in A, grace this recording by violinist Renaud Capuçon and pianist Martha Argerich. Longtime collaborators, the duo sound seamless in these performances. They create detailed renditions, faithful to the scores but keen to put their own stamp on the pieces.

 

The first movement of the Schumann exemplifies this approach, with the performers digging into the main theme and unspinning  legato lines in its development, the tempo treated flexibly. In the second movement, an Allegretto of considerable delicacy, Capuçon and Argerich provide shading between its major and minor sections that create a chiaroscuro effect. The final movement is dazzling, with Argerich’s right hand and the violin doubling in a fleet duet. Emphatic chords and sforzandos punctuate the music, which culminates with a heroic cadence.

 

Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata is one of the most prized in the violin-piano literature, and Capuçon and Argerich play it with powerfully delineated dynamic contrasts, exquisite attention to phrasing and articulations, and a sense of familiarity by dint of long association with the piece. Every time one or the other player stretches out, they know that the other will be there to support them, even catch them. The breaths provided by subtle ritardandos and slightly extended rests are part of what gives the performance a special character. Beethoven’s music isn’t meant to be motoric, but more timid performers sometimes play it that way. The second movement, an extended set of variations. The F major theme, as so often for this key in Beethoven, has a simple, limpid quality. Despite its length – over sixteen minutes – the music is shaped with a keen awareness of its overarching form. After the piano leads off, the violin takes a turn in the foreground with ornate soprano register embellishments. A minor section mid-movement lends the music a melancholic flavor, with keening accentuations doubled by violin and piano. A return to the major key references the beginning, with florid ornaments even more present. The major key persists in the last variation, the longest in the movement. It is slow and grandiose, with a cadenza-like piano introduction. The violin enters with trills and the two render the tune in a call and response duet that brings the movement to a warm conclusion. It is followed by a presto sendoff, a sonata rondo. Once again the length of the movement is significant and the jaunty theme is subjected to many different permutations and harmonic underpinnings. The playing is virtuosic, displaying Capuçon and Argerich at their fleet-fingered best. 

 

César Franck’s Violin Sonata, composed in 1886 when the composer was sixty-three, is an example of  late Romantic treatment of chamber music. Sinuous melodies, denied resolution again and again, suggesting the influence of Wagner’s operas. There is a winsome character to the first movement’s tune that is affecting. With the change in style, one is afforded a different sense of the musicians’ playing. Argerich displays a sonorous, muscular tone and Capuçon complements this with a steely sound of his own. The second movement, an Allegro, is where the dramatic conflict of the sonata occurs. It is followed by a recitative and fantasy, which stretch phrases nearly to their breaking point in mournful melodies. The ambiguity of harmony and interwoven rhythms move the piece to the other side of the romantic divide, reminiscent of Johannes Brahms. The sonata comes full circle, returning to an allegretto tempo for the final movement. The beginning’s descending thirds are offset later by shimmering altissimo duets. Juxtaposed are A minor, in boisterous passages, and the more lyrical exploration of A major. Cascades of piano arpeggios,  scales and supple variations of the tune by the violin build the piece to a rousing finish. 

 

There are many recordings of these pieces. Few display the lived-in quality and consummate sensitivity of Capuçon and Argerich. Recommended.

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
CD Review, Classical Music, File Under?, Piano

Pollini plays late Beethoven Piano Sonatas (CD Review)

Beethoven Piano Sonatas, Opp. 101 & 106

Maurizio Pollini

Deutsche Grammophon

 

Maurizio Pollini turned eighty during the recording sessions for this CD in 2021 and 2022. The great pianist spent forty years doing his first recording of all thirty-two piano sonatas by Beethoven. He returned to the last three during the anniversary year of 2020. Now, Pollini has decided to document two of the late sonatas again for Deutsche Grammophon. Redundant? Hardly. These renditions are distinctive, demonstrating Pollini’s assured technique and interpretive powers in recrafting these sonatas, which he has played for so many years.  

 

Generally here, Pollini selects tempos on the fast side. He even plays the Hammerklavier, Op. 106, up to its metronome markings, often thought impractical by previous interpreters and musicologists. In the A Major Sonata, Op. 101, this choice is rewarding as well. The second movement, Vivace alla marcia, displays a jubilant swagger, and the final movement, an Allegro marked Geschwind (quick like the wind) is lightly articulated and quickly rendered, displaying both virtuosity and delicacy. The first and third movements, an Allegretto ma non troppo and Adagio ma non troppo, pay attention to the non troppo (“not too much”) designations, providing both with a lyrical, legato approach to flowing melodies. 

 

The supposed malfunctioning of Beethoven’s metronome could be an understandable assumption at the speeds suggested in the score for the Hammerklavier Sonata. Under Pollini’s hands, the tempos seem altogether natural, if quite impressive. The pianist occasionally allows the principal theme of the first movement to settle for emphasis. Apart from that, blazing virtuosity persists throughout. After a bravura opening, Pollini plays the Scherzo with mercurial grace. He delicately pulls back the dynamics for a chromatic interlude, only to attack the forte close to the section with powerful staccatos. From this miniature dance movement, the sonata then supplies a fifteen-minute long adagio movement, quite typical of the melancholy, ruminative slow movements of Beethoven’s late style. Pollini adopts poignancy without undue sentimentality, shading the various sections with a variety of dynamics and articulations. The last movement begins Largo, a modulatory introduction with several recitative-like passages. It then is succeeded by an ebullient Allegro finale with fugal passages that Pollini takes clearly but at dizzying speed. There is a triumphal quality in the pianist’s rendition that is glorious to hear. Not bad for an eighty year old!

 

Some chaff at the practice of recording and re-recording the standard repertoire. When it is done as Pollini has here, I say bring it on. 

 

-Christian Carey


by Christian Carey
Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Flute, New York, Strings

Buffalo Philharmonic honors Lukas Foss @ 100 at Carnegie

Lukas Foss
Lukas Foss

Buffalo Philharmonic and its music director JoAnn Falletta brought their considerable world class talent downstate to Carnegie Hall on Monday. The hall was full, despite persistent rain and the fact that the program was entirely dedicated to a composer whose name and music are not familiar to the casual music fan.

The celebrated composer and conductor Lukas Foss (1922-2009) put his indelible stamp on Buffalo when he was music director of the Philharmonic, 1963 – 1971. With programming that included a healthy dose of new music, he paved the way for a taste for contemporary works in Buffalo. He made a deep impression on JoAnn Falletta, whose association with him goes back to Milwaukee Symphony where she was his assistant conductor in the 1980s. It’s evident from the way Falletta talks about – and performs – Lukas Foss, that she reveres the man and his music.

This year, the centennial of his birth, brought some of his brilliant and neglected works to the stage, five of which were featured this evening. The ensemble performed the music as if it were in their DNA, although, as I later learned, the works were new to these players.

JoAnn Falletta
JoAnn Falletta (credit David Adam Beloff)

The program, while full of collaborative performers, allowed the Buffalo Philharmonic to shine on its own in the first and last pieces on the program. Foss said of the first work on the program, Ode, that it represented “crisis, war and, ulti­mately, ‘faith.’” It was appropriately heavy and ominous with BPO’s brass shining through with impressively dense chords.

BPO’s concert master, Nikki Chooi, took center stage as soloist for Three American Pieces, a work which seemed to shout “Americana!” Chooi’s warm tone and heartfelt playing were evident throughout.  In fast passages, Chooi showed off his virtuosity as his bow bounced rapidly on the strings, a spiccato effect. Elements of jazz and country fiddling were woven into the composition; Chooi made the most of each of these styles, supported by various orchestra soloists, notably William Amsel’s jaunty clarinet.

The flutist Amy Porter was featured in Renaissance Concerto, a composition commissioned by the BPO in 1986 for the flutist Carol Wincenc. Foss called it a “lov­ing handshake across the centuries,” and in the process of writing the work, tapped Falletta to help gather lute songs for his inspiration. The orchestra navigated fast riffs in excellent intonation, supporting the soloist. Foss cleverly plays with rhythms, delaying a beat to create a jagged rhythm in the second movement. In the third movement, the soloist’s portamento pitch slides affirm the work’s modernism; a passage which was echoed by principal flutist Christine Lynn Bailey with a nicely matched tone. Porter navigated the extended techniques with aplomb, generating percussive sounds meshing in duet with tambourine. With a dramatic flair, Porter inched her way off the stage as she played the final measures.

 

BPO was joined by The Choir of Trinity Wall Street and Downtown Voices, for Psalms, a work written in 1956. Tenor Stephen Sands (who is also Downtown Voices director), and soprano Sonya Headlam delivered solos that were spot on and especially moving; beautifully punctuated by harp, tympani and strings. Fugal passages were well-executed, and, with Falletta’s encouragement and direction, never overpowering. The singers had the spotlight to themselves for Alleluia by Foss’s teacher Randall Thompson, an a cappella work that was stunningly gorgeous and reverently performed.

Symphony No. 1, written in 1944, was the earliest work on the program. Textures in the orchestration evoked the sound and style of Copland, mixed with Bernstein, mixed with Hindemith; a sound parallel to the “midcentury modern” style of architecture and furniture. The third movement displayed an appropriate amount of swing, and each of the principal string players were radiant in their respective solo passages in the final movement.

The Lukas Foss Centennial Celebration at Carnegie Hall was a fitting tribute to this under-recognized American composer. Next week, Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic head to the recording studio, and an album of the entire program will be released by Naxos next year.

by Gail Wein
ACO, Ambient, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Commissions, Composers, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Experimental Music, Flute, New York

Carnegie Hall: Highlights of contemporary music in the 2022-2023 season

Claire Chase

Ironically, the first concert of flutist Claire Chase’s reign as Richard and Barbara Debs Creative Chair at Carnegie Hall in the 2022-23 season focuses on a dead composer. In honor of the groundbreaking composer and accordionist Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016), on January 21, 2023 Chase and friends perform an all-Oliveros concert. In addition to Chase (credited as performing “air objects”), instrumentalists include percussionists Tyshawn Sorey and Susie Ibarra and Manari Ushigua, leader of the Sapara Nation in the Ecuadorian Amazon, who has the intriguing credit of “Forest Wisdom Defender”.

Oliveros was hugely influential on the contemporary music scene. She was especially noted for “deep listening,” a term that Oliveros herself coined, referring to an aesthetic based upon principles of improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation.

The performance will be in Zankel Hall, reconfigured to a theater-in-the-round setup with the performers in the center of the hall. Several other contemporary music program in January will take place in the “Zankel Hall Center Stage” milieu, including performances by yMusic (January 19), Third Coast Percussion (January 20), Rhiannon Giddens (January 24) and Kronos Quartet (January 27).

“I’m honored to be the 2022-2023 Richard and Barbara Debs Creative Chair at Carnegie Hall this season,” wrote Chase on Facebook. “Each of the projects on this series has collaboration at its core, and I’m gobsmacked to get to share the stage with some of the most inspiring musicians in my orbit—people who have changed the way I play, changed the way I listen, and who continue to blow the roof off of the imaginations of everyone in earshot.”

Chase is fortunate to have Carnegie’s backing for this season’s chapter of her 24 year-long commissioning and performance project, Density 2036.  Beginning in 2013, Chase has commissioned a new body of solo flute repertoire every year; she’ll continue the process through 2036, the 100th anniversary of Edgard Varèse’s groundbreaking flute solo, Density 21.5. The decades-long project has given a unique framework for Claire Chase’s performance career.

The two “Density” programs are highlights of the entire Carnegie season, and they’re worth waiting for. On May 18, Chase performs Varèse’s Density 21.5 alongside works for flute and electronics that she commissioned over the past ten years, by Felipe Lara, Marcos Balter, Mario Diaz de Leon, George E. Lewis and Du Yun. The sound artist and percussionist Levy Lorenzo handles the live electronics. On May 25, Chase, along with cellists Katinka Kleijn and Seth Parker Woods, pianist Cory Smythe, and electronics artist Levy Lorenzo performs the world premiere of a Carnegie Hall commission by Anna Thorvaldsdottir.

The Paris-based Ensemble Intercontemporain, in its first Carnegie Hall performance in two decades, appears on March 25. The ground-breaking group, founded in 1976 by Pierre Boulez, brings a program that includes the New York premiere of Sonic Eclipse, by EIC’s music director Mattias Pintscher, alongside Dérive 2 by Boulez; and the ensemble reaches back a century to include Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra.

I’ll never forget the first American Composers Orchestra concert at Carnegie that I attended, over 20 years ago. I marveled at the fact that every composer was in attendance (except Charles Ives, and he had a good excuse). Since then, I’ve eagerly looked forward to ACO’s offerings at Carnegie. On October 20 the orchestra, led by Mei-Ann Chen, gives the world premiere of a new work by Yvette Janine Jackson (co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall), and brings a host of guest performers to the Perelman stage: Sandbox Percussion (performing Viet Cuong’s Re(new)al -you’ll be seeing his name more and more, mark my words), the Attacca Quartet (performing an as-yet untitled new work by inti figgis-vizueta), and cellist Jeffrey Zeigler (featured in the New York premiere of Last Year by Mark Adamo). On March 16, Daniela Candellari conducts premieres by George Lewis, Ellen Reid, and Jihyun Noel Kim, and Modern Yesterdays by Kaki King, with the composer on guitar. As far as I can predict, none of these composers will have an excuse as good as Ives if they don’t show up.

The long-lived quintet-of-color, Imani Winds performs new and recent music at Zankel Hall on April 25. Vijay Iyer continues to prove his mettle as a versatile composer with Bruits; also on the program are The Light is the Same by Reena Esmail, and Frederic Rzewski’s Sometimes.

There are many other concerts that showcase living composers at Carnegie this season, including a good number of regional and world premieres commissioned by the institution itself. Composers from Thomas Adès to Caroline Shaw to Michi Wiancko are featured; details are at this link. A complete calendar with program details and ticket information is at this link.

by Gail Wein