Tag: concert review

Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Los Angeles, Review

Wicked GOAT – Stories

On Sunday, March 24, 2024 the Pasadena Conservatory of Music presented the second in this season’s Wicked GOAT concert series of Contemporary Music for Young People. The concert is free to the Conservatory community and every seat in Barrett Hall was filled with eager faces and proud parents. The theme for this occasion was Stories and a stellar group of Los Angeles-based performers were on hand to bring four new music compositions to life, including a world premiere. Sopranos Hila Plitmann and Elissa Johnston brought their extraordinary voices to the stage, and this was the first Wicked GOAT concert to include vocalists. Alyssa Park and Timothy Loo of the Lyris Quartet accompanied, along with Brian Walsh of Brightwork New Music and Conservatory piano faculty members Nic Gerpe and Katelyn Vahala. Jane Kaczmarek contributed her excellent narration for the final piece. Three of the composers were in attendance and gave introductory remarks in person and the fourth, Paul Moravec, addressed the audience via video.

First on the program was a world premiere, The Poetry of Nature (2020), by Gernot Wolfgang. Wolfgang noted that he composed this during the long months of Covid isolation and that for him, nature is a religious experience that starts three miles from the trail head. The piece is a cycle of four songs about nature with texts taken from well-known poets and sung by noted soprano Hila Plitmann, accompanied by pianist Nic Gerpe. Daylight and Moonlight, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was first, and this began with strong piano chords and soft vocals. Hila Plitmann’s pure tone and clear diction perfectly fit the direct language and thoughtful images of the Longfellow poem. The text was displayed on a large screen while Ms. Plitmann’s supple voice allowed the words to comfortably fill the performance space at all dynamic levels. The haunting and elegant feeling of this music made for an effective portrayal of moonlight and daylight.

The next song was based on Blue Butterfly Day, by Robert Frost. This opened with a series of rapid, fluttering figures on the piano and solid vocals, all in a good balance. Ms. Plitmann’s voice was effective over an extended range and demonstrated a carefully controlled intensity at all pitches. More impressive, perhaps, was the fact that she sang the entire song cycle from memory. Rumors from an Aeolian Harp, by Henry David Thoreau, followed. This was quiet, cautious music at first, reserved and introspective. A strong soprano passage reached up to the back row of the hall, confirming Plitmann’s extraordinary vocal skill and control. As the piece proceeded, it alternated between soft and forceful, always with just the right amount of power from the vocalist.

The final song of the work was based on Afternoon Upon a Hill, by Edna St. Vincent Millay. This was upbeat and full of motion with many changes to dynamics and tempo in the piano line. The brightly expressive feel was nicely captured by the fine coordination between Gerpe and Plitmann. A quietly effective ending brought this piece to a close. The Poetry of Nature is a solidly contemporary piece, yet accessible to all audiences.

The second work on the concert program was Three Folk Songs (2016) by Gabrielle Rosse and this was performed by soprano Elissa Johnston accompanied by Katelyn Vahala of the Conservatory piano faculty. The texts were drawn from traditional folk songs, the first being Black is the Color followed by Pretty Little Horses. Black is the Color opened with slow, dark piano chords that created a dramatic setting. The soprano vocals were very expressive, aided by the rich fullness of Ms. Johnston’s voice. The words floated out to the audience with a lush warmness that provided a strong foundation for the easygoing melody. When called for, Ms. Johnston could summon a powerful sound with good dynamic range, but the warmth in her voice always came through in the music. As the piece proceeded, there were often changes from quiet to strong but these were skillfully navigated and always under control.

The second piece, Pretty Little Horses, was quiet and almost like a lullaby. The haunting feel of this piece was delivered with careful attention to nuance and detail. Rosa de Sal (2020), by Reena Esmail, followed, and this was also performed by Johnston and Vahala. The text was by the poet Pablo Neruda and sung in Spanish. The piece opened with a quiet piano figure as the soprano entered in a low voice. The piano moved to a smoothly active line, adding a sense of drama. The vocals followed the accompaniment with beautiful singing and a soaring passage that filled the space with a robust sound. As the piece proceeded, the dynamics often changed between loud and soft with Ms. Johnston in complete control. All of the vocal music in this concert struck a fine balance between contemporary abstraction and accessibility for the listening audience.

The final work in the program was the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tempest Fantasy (2003), by Paul Moravec. This was an instrumental piece scored for piano, violin, cello, and clarinets with Nic Gerpe returning to the piano. There were five movements in all, a meditation on the characters of The Tempest, by William Shakespeare. Before the various movements were presented, Jane Kaczmarek’s brief narrations were invaluable for establishing an Elizabethan ambiance. The words were delivered without a microphone, but her rendering of the Shakespearean texts was clearly understood, even in the far upper reaches of the audience.

Of all the pieces on the program, Tempest Fantasy was easily the most intense. “Ariel”, the first movement, set the pace with a fast tempo, broken rhythms and an energetic feel. Only masterful coordination among the players kept this piece on track, and a nice groove soon developed. “Prospero”, movement II, was in sharp contrast with long, sustained tones and languid harmonies. An expressive violin solo rising above the texture, inviting a questioning feel. A steady tutti section towards the finish proved darkly dramatic. The sense of mystery deepened in “Caliban”, movement III, with Brian Walsh’s bass clarinet adding a brilliantly sinister touch. Violin and cello combined in a halting melody that featured excellent coordination between the players. As the tempo and complexity increased, all the players joined in a purposeful tutti section at the finish.

Movement IV, “Sweet Airs”, was just that with quiet piano chords underneath a lovely violin solo by Alyssa Park. The other instruments joined in to create a fullness that was introspective and almost nostalgic. The dynamics rose and the rhythms became more active, only to fall back to a slow and graceful finish. “Fantasia”, movement V, was the rousing climax to the work and this opened with rapid piano passages. The cello and clarinet soon joined in, adding to the excitement, and a smooth, declarative violin line arced over the active texture below. As the piece progressed, the rhythms seemed to deconstruct into separate, broken lines that further increased the choppiness. At one point, Timothy Loo could be seen almost jumping out of his chair in an attempt to keep his cello in the mix. The intensity increased before falling back, and then increased again just before the finish. The “Fantasia” movement was quite a ride and put an exclamation mark on Tempest Fantasy.

Afterwards, a group of Conservatory students skillfully performed covers of popular music during the post-concert reception held in the assembly hall. The Wicked GOAT concert series is becoming a fine tradition for the Pasadena community and continues to facilitate the appreciation of new music to a growing audience. Altogether it was a good way to spend a rainy afternoon.

by Paul Muller
Chamber Music, Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, New York

Takács Quartet Gives Birth to the Universe

Takacs Quartet at 92ny-March 13, 2024 - credit Joseph Sinnott
Takacs Quartet at 92nd Street Y on March 13, 2024 (credit Joseph Sinnott)

How does a composer write music? Whether she pulls interesting sounds out of the air, or creates an elaborate scheme of hieroglyphics – can an uninformed listener tell the difference? Sometimes not, as was the case Wednesday night at the 92nd Street Y where the incomparable Takács Quartet gave the New York premiere of Flow by Nokuthula Endo Ngwenyama.

Flow was backed up by an elaborate set of program notes that described inspiration ranging from the sound of the Big Bang to the breathing discipline “Pranayama”. Even with that knowledge in hand, for the most part I couldn’t detect the connection between concept and sound. Within the four-movement piece, I heard a heartbeat depicted by the viola’s pizzicato, observed sultry pitch slides in the second violin and enjoyed a wacky waltz where every measure seemed purposely just a little bit out of kilter. But the “outburst of energy and matter at the birth of our universe”? Not apparent at all. On the other hand, Flow ingeniously and successfully meshed extended technique with conventional sounds, and overall is a beguiling piece.

I’ve been a fan of the Takács Quartet for at least half of the group’s 49 years of ensemble-hood. This evening was the first time I heard them in their current lineup, with violinist Harumi Rhodes (joined in 2018) and violist Richard O’Neill (came on board in 2019), merging with first violinist Edward Dusinberre who has been with Takács since 1993, and the sole original member, cellist András Fejér.

This long-lived ensemble retained its aesthetic and its tight sound over the years and throughout its personnel changes. The Beethoven String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 59, No. 2 “Razumovsky” which made up the second half of the concert was so captivating that, in that moment, I felt like I would never want to hear any other quartet, ever. The group’s lightness and joie de vivre, dramatic attention to dynamics, and intonation and rhythmic accuracy so good, it might as well be a single instrument, all contributed to the quartet’s breathtaking performance.  Their reading of the String Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 76, No. 4 “Sunrise” by Franz Josef Haydn which opened the program was equally outstanding.

Flow by Nokuthula Endo Ngwenyama was commissioned for the Takács Quartet by Cal Performances and a consortium including 92NY. They’ll perform the work several more times in March and April 2024, in Philadelphia, Schenectady, Scottsdale, Buffalo, Ann Arbor, and Rochester, NY.

by Gail Wein
BAM, Classical Music, Composers, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, New York, Opera, Strings, viola, Violin, Vocals

“Angel Island” by Huang Ruo at the Prototype Festival

Prototype: “Angel Island” photo credit: Maria Baranova

The special sauce that has made Prototype, the annual opera/theater festival, a success for over a decade is a straightforward formula: socially relevant, edgy vocal works that are high on drama. Angel Island, a theatrical work with music by Huang Ruo, fits that description.

The speck of land in the middle of San Francisco Bay known as Angel Island served as an immigration port in the first half of the 20th century

. Hundreds of thousands of hopeful migrants from Asia were interrogated and detained, some of them for years, in the decades from 1910 to 1940. It’s not a great leap of imagination to relate today to this story of migration, discrimination, prejudice and downright hatred of certain citizens from abroad.

These immigrants came here of their own volition, but did they have any idea of the strife that awaited them as they stepped off the boat? Like so many Americans whose families came from abroad over the past four centuries, they were only looking for a better life. The promise of streets paved with gold (especially after word of the 1849 Gold Rush spread) was tantalizing.

The Chinese-American violist Charlton Lee, a member of the Del Sol Quartet suggested the story to the Chinese-born composer Huang Ruo. In a New York Times article, Lee said that many people “don’t know about the plight of these immigrants who were trying to come here, start a new life and were just stuck.”

The work is in eight movements, alternating between narration and singing. The text for the sung portions were taken from some of the 200 poems that were found in the barracks on Angel Island, etched into the walls by the detainees. Each narrated section consisted of text taken directly from news accounts and other historical texts, depicting the Chinese Massacre of 1871, The Page Act of 1875 (legislation denying Chinese women entry to the United States), and the story of the lone Chinese survivor of the Titanic.

The Del Sol Quartet performed the score on stage, along with members of the Choir of Trinity Wall Street whose acting talents were employed throughout the performance. The instrumental parts were often intensely rhythmic and emphatic chords, which were dramatic but sometimes monotonous. There wasn’t much in the way of melody for the instrumentalists or the singers, but the harmonies were lushly gorgeous and beautifully sung, belying the darkness and trauma of the texts. Bill Morrison’s film, often with images of the ocean, was mesmerizing, especially when the choir huddled together and swayed as if on an undulating boat at sea.

Prototype: "Angel Island" photo credit: Maria Baranova
Prototype: “Angel Island” photo credit: Maria Baranova

In general, each element of the production on its own wasn’t exciting — but when combined, the hypnotic film, the adagio movements of the singers clustered on stage as directed by Matthew Ozawa, and the rather minimalist music — all worked together to be incredibly effective. This is a work much greater than the sum of its parts. Dramatic peaks, such as sequences with two solo dancers, and the insistent sounding of a gong throughout the final movement were that much more compelling in contrast.

Angel Island brings attention to a story of United States immigration that is much less familiar than the Statue of Liberty-adjacent Ellis Island.

The New York premiere of Angel Island was performed at the Harvey Theater at BAM Strong on January 11-13, 2024 (I attended on January 12).  It was produced by Beth Morrison Projects in association with Brooklyn Academy of Music.

by Gail Wein
Choral Music, Concert review, early music, File Under?

The Tallis Scholars at St. Mary the Virgin (Concert Review)

Photo: Rodrigo Pérez

 

Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips, director

Church of St. Mary the Virgin

December 9, 2023

 

NEW YORK – It is the fiftieth anniversary of the renaissance ensemble the Tallis Scholars, directed during that entire time by Peter Phillips. Their annual December visit to St. Mary the Virgin Church in midtown often consists of a predominantly Marian program, both to suit that setting and church calendar. This year, there were two large pieces devoted to Mary – settings of Salve Regina by Jacob Obrecht (1457-1505) and Peter Philips (1560-1628; the early baroque composer, not the eponymous conductor of the Tallis Scholars). The bulk of the music was instead devoted to a different theme, “While Shepherds Watched,” with its centerpiece being Missa Pastoris quidnam vidistis by Jacobus Clemens Non Papa (c. 1510-1556; “not the pope” – Pope Clement – was thought to be an affectionate nickname). This parody mass, based on the motet Pastoris quidnam vidistis by Clemens, was recorded in 1987 by the Tallis Scholars. Its reappearance at the concert at St. Mary’s was a welcome return. 

 

The concert began with Clemens’s motet, a dramatic setting depicting the visitation of  angels to a group of shepherds, announcing the birth of the messiah and urging them to go and find him. The composer comes from the post-Josquin generation, the mid-period of the renaissance in which elaborate counterpoint often took precedence over clarity of text, but with considerable expressiveness achieved by musical atmosphere. 

 

The mass incorporates a number of aspects of the motet, its opening figure treated in a number of passages, sometimes the entire tune, and at others, its rising head motto. The Kyrie bustles with activity, free counterpoint encircled by imitation. The Gloria has a canon in the lower voices and an elaborated melody in the high soprano. As it is often performed, the final section, “qui tollis,” speeds up. Here, because of the prevalence of syncopation, the effect was thrilling. The jubilation of the shepherds at the motet’s close is mirrored in the exuberance of the Sanctus’ “Alleluia.” An extra bass part was added to the Agnus Dei, reinforcing the sonority of the close of the mass.

 

Three motets on the “While Shepherds Watched” theme ensued. One of the greatest Christmas motets from the renaissance in Iberia is the six-voice Quem vidistis, pastores by Tomás de Luis Victoria (1548-1611). The sopranos begin in canon, accompanied by a free part in the alto, suggesting, as compared with the text Clemens set, an early appearance of the angels. The three lower parts respond in an analogous configuration. The two trios then break out of mirrored deployments, speeding up in a nimble section that ends with a major cadence. The second part of the motet continues the mirroring effect, with the lower voices starting a new canon first, followed by the upper trio. After a spirited Alleluia section, the choir settled into a final set of phrases taking the text, “go and tell them,” finally arriving at another major cadence.

 

Two settings of Quaeramus cum pastoribus followed. It is a text in which an angel exhorts the shepherds to find the Messiah, followed by a refrain of Noés (noëls). Portuguese composer Pedro de Cristo (1545-1618) created a four-voice setting consisting of tightly spaced canons with the refrain moving to a sprightly triple meter. The Tallis Scholars reveled in its joyousness, but I can also imagine this motet being a good introduction to Renaissance Christmas music for an ambitious American church choir. Italian composer Giovanni de Croce (1557-1609), on the other hand,  sets the text in the Venetian style, with two quartets and much antiphony. The contrasting settings of the same text were a canny programming choice, and the singers thrived in this deployment.

 

Obrecht’s Salve Regina alternates chant and polyphony. It was performed with eloquent solemnity, providing a marked shift of demeanor. The Salve Regina by Philips, on the other hand, is a vibrant affair. Composed nearly a century after the Obrecht, it focuses on antiphonal polyphony rather than chant. Philips was a Catholic exile from England, and his Salve Regina setting has much in common with the Venetian polychoral style. 

 

After sustained applause, the Tallis Scholars performed a brief but pleasing encore, Salva Nos by French composer Jean Mouton (1459-1522). The piece gave the group’s lower voices considerable attention, its final chord richly sepulchral. Fifty years into their tenure, the Tallis Scholars and Phillips remain an energetic and authoritative presence. 

 

-Christian Carey

 

by Christian Carey
Boston, Chamber Music, Concert review, Contemporary Classical, Festivals, File Under?

Tanglewood: FCM Chamber Music Concert (review)

Photo: Hilary Scott.

Festival of Contemporary Music

Chamber Music

Sunday, July 30, 2023

 

LENOX – There were a number of firsts on the July 30th chamber music concert. I have never seen the stage at Ozawa Hall require several minutes of vacuuming up bits of wood, but Malin Bång’s Arching, for amplified cello, amplified tools, and electronics, created considerable, if entertaining, mayhem. Another first: hearing “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round,” paired in fugal counterpoint with the Brahms lullaby. 

 

The find for me at FCM was Tebogo Monnakgotla, a Swedish composer who curated Sunday’s concert. The aforementioned nursery rhythm fugue was from her considerably charming piece, Toys, or the Wonderful World of Clara (2008). The backstory: when Monnakgotla’s child was a toddler, she received all manner of musical toys, and loved to run them all at once. The composer recounted that multiple Brahms-singing toys were terribly out of tune, with themselves and each other (this too was incorporated in the piece, in clusters that distressed the lullaby). The idea may have been whimsical, but its deployment was anything but, the piece creating fascinating swaths of texture and crafty quodlibets. 

 

Toys is memorable, but by no means representative of the rest of Monnakgotla’s programmed pieces. Her early Five Pieces for String Trio juxtaposes open cello strings with glissandos, harmonics, and wisps of sul ponticello. The movements cohere into a well-crafted organic whole. Le dormeur du val, a setting of Rimbaud for soprano and mixed chamber ensemble, has a haunting presence. The poem depicts a soldier who appears to be resting near the field of battle. It is only at its very conclusion that we learn of his wounds and realize that he is not resting, but deceased. Monnakgotla employs trumpet calls and vigorous drums to create a bellicose background. The vocal part contrasts this with a feeling of doleful detachment. Soprano Juliet Schlefer did a fine job presenting the ending’s swerve without overselling, and she was equally sensitive when interpreting with the rest of the poem. Schlefer has a lyric voice of considerable beauty: I would love to hear her again.

 

Two other composers were programmed on the concert. Bent Sørensen’s compact string quartet, The Lady of Lalott, reveled in banshee-like distant howls and prevalent extended techniques. South African composer Andile Khumalo’s solo piano piece Schau-fe[r]n-ster II combines spectralist inflections, with shimmering overtones and chords spaced according to registral positioning in the harmonic series, with second modernist hyper-virtuosity. Joseph Vasconi played the work with adroit facility and a depth of understanding that belied his student status at Tanglewood. Khumalo’s language is distinctive. One presumes and welcomes that we will hear much more from him. 

 

After every one of her pieces, Monnakgotla took to the stage to warmly greet and thank the performers. It was clear that this affection was returned, and that mutual artistic respect played a role in the concert’s success. Tanglewood students at FCM benefit much from the mentorship of senior composers, and it was clear that this collaboration was quite successful.

 

 The concert ended with a reflective piece by Monnakgotla, Companions (seasons) (2021), for solo violin. It represents the various stages of a professional string player’s career as seasons: The ebullient spring of a young student, the prodigy’s successes during a long, hot summer, artistic maturity and the demands of performing and teaching in autumn, and, finally, the winter of retirement, in which the violinist’s instrument is like an old friend. The music is ambitious yet touching, and was played with assuredness and grace by Connor Chaikowsky. A stirring valediction to a memorable concert. 

 

____

 

On Friday, August 28th, FCM devoted a curated concert to Anna Thorvaldsdottir, an Icelandic composer who is regularly commissioned by some of the best orchestras in the world. The highlights of the concert were two ensemble works, Hrim and Aquilibria, coached and conducted by Stephen Drury, and the closer, the ensemble work Ró, conducted by Agata Zając. Thorvaldsdottir’s music blooms with effervescent overtones, and addresses elements of tonality in novel and frequently surprising ways. 

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
Contemporary Classical

FOR PHILIP GUSTON: A MEDITATION AND PRACTICE

Would you spend four and a half hours listening to this long piece?

Would you enter the concert hall and embark on this unknown auditory journey?

BY Di Fang

On April 12th at 2 p.m., in the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall at the University of California, San Diego, renowned percussionist Steven Schick, flutist Alexander Ishov, and pianist Liam Wooding performed together to interpret the work of 20th-century American composer Morton Feldman—”For Philip Guston” (1984). The initial experience of a four-and-a-half-hour concert with a slow, continuous pace, led by one of the world’s leading percussion masters, Steven Schick, left the audience with anticipation.

Steven Schick

Feldman’s music is slow and quiet, with an exquisite delicacy. When the first note of the piece is played, the floating melody immediately creates a sense of emptiness and mystery, leading the audience into an unknown world.

What are the performers doing? What elusive emotions are they evoking? What does Feldman want to say to his deceased closest friend Phillip Guston, the Abstract Expressionist? Where does the music lead the listener? What kind of chemical reaction will occur between the listener and the music? For the lead player Steven Schick, what does it mean to play this controversial work again after so many years? What is the difference between artists of very different ages performing together? What does this mean for the audience? What is the significance of Feldman to present and future?

Unexpectedly, as the music progresses, the audience’s curiosity is not constantly either amplified or resolved, but rather follows it the nice clean emptiness, to the depths of a calm and slightly melancholic abyss. With the passage of time, I began to discard all trivial matters, let go of unnecessary emotional burdens, and gradually set aside pointless thoughts. As the performance crossed the halfway mark, I felt constrained by my seat and walked to the steps on the side of the audience, where I sat down and continued the ritual-like listening. Looking at the other listeners, some stood with their eyes closed, while others lay directly on the carpet, seemingly immersed in a dream.

Liam Wooding

Feldman infused his notes into my present and future life, and my associations became a form of insight. Hidden metaphors, buried within myself, were like a reflection in a dusting mirror, gradually revealing their pure and natural essence through listening to Feldman’s composition. The act of listening enters the realm of aesthetic contemplation and communion with the universe.

The music is extremely minimalistic period, employing minimal motives for parallelism and repetition, resembling the primitive state of life. Its structure, however, is asymmetrical and unbalanced, unadorned, and bears a longing for ephemeral existence. The composer possesses a deep understanding of instrument usage, with the orchestration more akin to the blending of similar timbres rather than mere accompaniment. Compared with the weak sense of rhythm, the patterns of the melodies are more prominent and leave a lasting impression that lingers in one’s mind. This disrupts the audience’s previous auditory expectations of percussion.

This work not only challenges the physical limits of the performers in terms of its duration but also requires a sense of mutual understanding, breath, and collaboration among them due to its rhythmic, tempo, and dynamic characteristics. The vibraphone, the glockenspiel, and the celesta intertwine with indistinguishable timbres, while the contrasting tones of the piccolo and marimba disrupt the melody, creating a “Zen” stillness in the midst of the environment, halting the music and evoking a sense of enlightenment.

Alexander Ishov

The collaboration between the two young artists Alexander Ishov, Liam Wooding, and the percussion master Steven Schick is so harmonious and reflects each other. The bodily movements of the three artists are consistent, evoking the swaying of irregular tree shadows, while the overall composition progresses rhythmically, akin to a pendulum, showcasing a cohesive structure with internal coherence. I have no intention of seeking out specific vocabulary to describe the performance style of them, emphasizing their skills, coordination, and precise control over body expression. It’s because they best embody the concepts of “performer as absent” and “performer not present.” The performers’ act of erasing personal traces allows the audience to directly confront the work itself.

This aesthetic of sound is not commonly found in contemporary compositions. In an era of sound material exploding, Feldman returns to precise notation to paint the new structure. He places importance on the presentation of material and even more on the integration of material, requiring melting and mix like pigments. The process of viewing a painting is temporal, each moment seen is always partial. Feldman maps indeterminate sounds into the stretch of time, dissolving the complete symbolic image, which allows each instrument enough time to adjust its breathing and refine its sound system in the process. At the same time, silence gained its positive status.

In fact, no other composers of his time were influenced so much by paintings and painters. Whether designing, sketching, or copying, a painter’s first consideration is the size of the painting. Feldman thinks the same thing, “up to one hour you think about form, but after an hour and a half its scale. Form is easy—just the division of things into parts. But scale is another matter.” The emergence of the best crypto casino UK parallels this focus on scale, as these platforms expand rapidly, leveraging cryptocurrency to enhance user experiences and operational efficiency. However, we can’t ignore the connection between Feldman and Guston’s abstractions, early Anatolian rugs, Robert Rauschenberg, and the textiles in Egypt’s Coptic Period. The material itself is raised to the same status as the structure. The boundaries between tool and object, form and content are blurred. The intuition is the point.

Feldman’s dissonant sounds are organized within a naturalistic rhythm and a concise arrangement of pitches, creating an abstract space with multiple dimensions. Concrete sounds such as church bells, temple wooden block, and the rhythm of bouncing after free-fall are abstracted one by one, encompassing the natural cacophony, worldly clamor, and inner whispers. In the world of sound, one experiences and engages in a “serene contemplation” (Zong Baihua, “Aesthetic Stroll”). The repetition of similar or identical sonic elements allows the listener to gain a profound sense of time, leading to a clear understanding of life and the essence of time.

Today, do we still need Morton Feldman and Philips Gaston? Perhaps what we should think about is the spatial field of this sound. What the human condition represented or mapped by the presence of this sound.

“For Philip Guston” (1984) is not merely a concert but a meditation and practice for both performers and audience members. It gives me a new understanding of the concert event itself. As the audience enters the concert hall, they entrust their time to the performers, while the performers contribute their passion and past experiences to the composer’s work. The music work becomes a medium of communication between the audience, composer, and performers, constructing a unique path for each individual to find personal significance. The performers lead the audience into an unknown world of sound. This world is not solely created by the composer or performers; it belongs to the collective human experience.

Morton Feldman

As Morton Feldman said, “This piece doesn’t give you the feeling that it’s four hours.”

The beauty of Feldman’s music is characterized by an elusive contradiction and the embodiment of “less is more” functionality, aligning with the aesthetics and analytical thinking of modernism. The journey of this concert seeks enlightenment in stillness, serving as a “spiritual practice” for the performers and a “choice” for each audience to cultivate their inner selves, which will accompany them throughout their lives.

(All photos by Robbie Bui)

Author: Di Fang

Visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego, Music Department.

Ph.D. candidate in Aesthetics of Music, Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

by Di Fang
Chamber Music, Commissions, Concert review, Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Lincoln Center, Strings, Women composers

An Ayre Apparent: Emerson String Quartet / Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

Emerson SQ w Sarah K Snider-2.
Emerson String Quartet with Sarah Kirkland Snider (credit Gail Wein)

Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Drink the Wild Ayre for String Quartet is the last work commissioned by the venerable Emerson String Quartet. The group – who plans to disband after 47 years of recitals and recordings – gave the New York premiere at one of their last concerts in New York City. It was a tidy closing of a loop. Early in Snider’s compositional career, two decades ago, performances by the Emerson String Quartet inspired her to write her own first quartet.

The ten minute work led the second half of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center program at Alice Tully Hall on Sunday. It instantly brought to mind a bucolic scene of nature and forest, evoking sounds of birds. The title of the work refers to a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, / Drink the wild air’s salubrity.” Snider’s “Ayre” embraces the clear melodic lines of instrumental airs from the 17th century. In the program note, she wrote, “The title seemed to be an apt reference not only to the lilting asymmetrical rhythms of the music’s melodic narrative but also to the questioning spirit sense of adventure and full hearted passion with which the Emerson has thrown itself into everything it has done for the past 47 years.” Compositionally, the work was the simplest on this program of 20th century classics – but concert music does not need to be complicated or thorny to be a success, which this clearly was.

The Emerson String Quartet opened the program with what I consider to be one of the best works in the repertoire, Maurice Ravel’s Quartet in F major for Strings. (In fact, the melancholy theme is still running through my head). Ravel’s composition is about as perfect a string quartet as one can get – but maybe it’s that the Emersons make everything they play seem so. At the work’s conclusion, wildly enthusiastic cheers abounded from the audience.

The sleeper hit of the afternoon was Anton Webern’s Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, Op. 9. ESQ gave an exceptionally musical reading of this set, infusing the long phrases of these short works with dramatic nuance and contrast. The quartet’s interpretation gave the music such purpose that it came off almost as a miniature opera, highlighting different characters and moods. A wonderful example: The fifth bagatelle clearly ended in a question, and was followed by a resolute response in the final bagatelle.

Quartet No. 2 for Strings, BB75, Op. 17 by Bela Bartok was written in the 1910s, about 15 years after Ravel’s, and the group played it with the same lush romantic flair. The final work on the printed program was Dmitri Shostakovich’s rousing Quartet No. 12 in D-flat major for Strings, Op. 133, composed in 1968. After a number of ovations, the Emersons offered a generous encore: A luxurious reading of the slow movement of the String Quartet No. 1, Lyric, by George Walker. The beautiful chorale-like music was a rich and sweet dessert.

by Gail Wein
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
Contemporary Classical, New York, Piano

Adam Tendler: Inheritances

Adam Tendler (credit Cameron McLeod)

When the pianist Adam Tendler received a windfall of cash a few years ago, he chose not to blow it on such ephemeral items as rent and groceries. Instead, he commissioned 16 composers to write short works, and assembled those into a program called Inheritances which he performed at The 92

nd Street Y, New York on Saturday in the collection’s New York premiere. Inheritances is deeply personal for Tendler: the money was an unanticipated bequest from his father, whose death itself was unexpected.

Nearly all of the music was tender and gentle; an impression that was formed from both the interpretation and the compositions themselves. Though it could have been monotonous from so much music in a similar mood and pace, the evening unfolded as a through-composed work with a discernable emotional arc.

An intense peak at the center of the program was inti figgis-vizueta’s hushing, which was coordinated with home video clips from Tendler’s childhood. It was stark, energetic and physical, with Tendler rising to his feet several times to fiercely pound the keys, alternating with poignant moments in which the Tendler on stage gazed up at the child Adam on the screen.

Inheritances began with an audio montage by Laurie Anderson called Remember, I Created You; after which Tendler, clad in a tight short-sleeved dress shirt that strained to contain his impressively bulging biceps, launched into Missy Mazzoli’s Forgiveness Machine. Mazzoli’s music was beautiful, tonal and lyrical, like many of the works that followed. Prepared piano in Scott Wollschleger’s Outsider Song added a variety of timbre to the lovely lullaby. Angelica Negron’s You Were My Age was whimsical in its staccato melody. What It Becomes by Mary Prescott was eerie and somewhat dissonant, yet still tender. Sarah Kirkland Snider’s rich chorale, the plum tree I planted still there, led into False Memories, a jazz-inflected dreamy piece by Marcos Balter. Pamela Z’s Thank You So Much changed up the texture by including a pastiche of voices mixed on a laptop, with the pattern and rhythm of the speech echoed in the keyboard music.

We don’t need to tend this garden. They’re wildflowers by Darian Donovan Thomas was a new-age style piece over which Tendler intoned an extended monologue of memory fragments. The final selection, Morning Piece by Devonte Hynes, evoked both metal and Bach, and Tendler ended Inheritances with a long slow decrescendo to Hynes’s music.

Ten of the 16 composers were in the audience: Timo Andres, Marcos Balter, inti figgis-vizueta, John Glover, Missy Mazzoli, Mary Prescott, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Darian Donovan Thomas, Scott Wollschleger and Pamela Z (Laurie Anderson, Angelica Negron, Ted Hearne, Christopher Cerrone, Nico Muhly and Devonte Hynes were not able to attend).  As the applause began at the conclusion of the performance, Tendler motioned for the composers to stand. I spotted Pamela Z and Missy Mazzoli in the brief moment before the entire audience was on its feet in a standing ovation, a tribute to Tendler, his late father and the music.

by Gail Wein
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