Briefly Noted: Kissin plays Salzburg

Evgeny Kissin, Salzburg Recital (Berg, Chopin, Gershwin, Khrennikov) (released on September 2, 2022) DG 00028948629947 | 97'32"

Evgeny Kissin's most recent recital in Washington was scheduled for May of 2020. Because that was obviously canceled, it has been a long drought since the celebrated Russian pianist last appeared here. To fight the withdrawal symptoms, your critic has turned to Kissin's newest recording, captured live at the Großes Festspielhaus in Salzburg in August of 2021.

The last several years have brought significant changes to Kissin's life. In 2017, during a break from performing, he married a childhood friend and wrote a memoir. In July of 2021, just before Kissin played this recital, his piano teacher, Anna Pavlovna Kantor, died at the age of 98. She was much more than a teacher to Kissin, becoming a member of his family and living with them for the last thirty years. "She was my only piano teacher, and everything I am able to do on the piano I owe to her," Kissin has written, dedicating this recital to her memory.

One imagines that the pandemic shutdowns were difficult for Kissin, who has always seemed to be most at ease while playing on stage, as if music were in a way his first language. "I’m simply more inspired in front of an audience," he is quoted saying in the liner notes of this two-disc set. He played this recital to a full house, something he said was very important to him, even in the face of coronavirus restrictions. Although he once told me backstage at the Kennedy Center that he had no interest in composing his own music, one of the Salzburg encores is his own Dodecaphonic Tango. Composition is now an interest of his: Kissin, who has been vocally critical of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is also composing a piano trio in response to this unprovoked war.

Among other curiosities, the program opens with a prickly performance of Berg's Piano Sonata, op. 1. A decidedly idiosyncratic rendition of Gershwin's Preludes follows a set of short pieces by Tikhon Khrennikov (1913-2007), a Russian composer and Soviet functionary. The choice is definitely odd for political reasons, given Khrennikov's consistent holding of the party line during the darkest years of the USSR and even after its dissolution. Listeners are then treated to the palate cleansing of Kissin's inimitable Chopin. Unable to let go of the audience, Kissin offered four encores, as usual some of the most exhilirating moments.

Die große Philharmoniker-Sommernachtsshow: Latest @ Wiener Zeitung

Die große Philharmoniker-Sommernachtsshow

Die Wiener Philharmoniker feierten vor Schloss Schönbrunn mit 85.000 Zuhörern das US-Musikschaffen und seine Verbindungen zu Österreich.

Die Veranstaltung mit einem klassischen Konzert zu verwechseln, vielleicht auf ein schwerfälliges "Adagio for Strings" von Samuel Barber oder den verzerrenden Wah-Wah-Effekt der schwingenden Mikrophone zu verweisen, wäre Themaverfehlung. Das Sommernachtskonzert ist eine Demonstration für den gesellschaftlichen Wert, den die Musikkultur in Wien hat. Das war es in beeindruckender Manier.... [weiterlesen]

New York City Ballet, Part 2

Lydia Wellington and Andrew Scordato in The Four Temperaments, New York City Ballet (photo by Paul Kolnik)
The second program of the New York City Ballet's visit to the Kennedy Center Opera House was not as marvelous as the first. The formula was the same as the first program: classic Balanchine paired with new works by the company's best young choreographers.

The Balanchine was a choreography long on my wish list, The Four Temperaments, the best known of the ballet scores composed by Paul Hindemith. The composer is not one most people think of as a dance composer, but his music worked exceptionally well in this collaboration with Balanchine from 1946. The music is in the form of a theme and variations, perhaps the musical structure best suited to ballet dancing because it provides variety in discrete sections. Balanchine created dances, mostly pairings and small groups costumed in domino-like black and white on a bare stage, that went with each of the temperaments in the score.

In the theme, Lydia Wellington and Andrew Scordato set the tone in a stiff and formal way, a vocabulary of movements that seemed mostly geometric but coordinated with and inspired by the music in the most natural way. The second pairing (Lauren King and Devin Alberda) entered with the piano solo, played expressively by Stephen Gosling in the pit, with King's foot kicks accenting flourishes from the keyboard. The third pair of the theme section (Ashley Laracey and Aaron Sanz) entered in a more deliberate set of movements that went with a fine violin solo section, one of the highlights of the choreography, with gorgeous form from Laracey, ending on her being carried off with her legs at a right angle.

Gonzalo Garcia flung himself around in the Melancholic variation, followed by two women who flitted around him in agitation. When joined by four more dancers, the moves became slower and heavier, with repeated gestures weighing down the movement in the style of the music. The Sanguinic variation was marked by enthusiastic high kicks in the entrance of Sara Mearns and Jared Angle. When four women joined Mearns in an active, decisive dance, the black one-piece costumes made them look almost like a synchronized swim team. Solo dancer Ask La Cour was measured and balanced in the Phlegmatic variation, each advance forward matched by a solemn retreat, later shadowed by four women in one of the other highlights of the ballet. Teresa Reichlen, her tall and lithe form all points and edges, led the Choleric section through Balanchine's calculated addition of dancers to involve the whole cast in a climactic final scene.

Other Reviews: Sarah L. Kaufman, From New York City Ballet: Big music, big dancing (mostly) (Washington Post, June 9) Alastair Macaulay, Sign of the Times: City Ballet’s Ashly Isaacs Laces Up Her Sneakers (New York Times, May 10) ---, New York City Ballet Opens a Spring Gala, and Some Umbrellas (New York Times, May 5) ---, New York City Ballet’s Very 21st-Century Steps (New York Times, January 27)

The two more recent works on either side of The Four Temperaments could not really measure up to it. Christopher Wheeldon's story-length ballets have not been among my favorites, but in shorter formats he can be intriguing. Sadly his new work American Rhapsody never really seems to connect to its music, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, played with gusto by the NYCB Orchestra and pianist Elaine Chelton. Here was the first set backdrop of the entire run, a starburst on a midnight-blue backdrop encircling the dancers (design by Leslie Sardinias). The costumes, also purple-blue with red and white highlights, recalled the vivacious era of the 1920s when the music was composed. The movements never seemed to have come from the music, indeed had little in common with it, and the central duo dance (Lauren Lovette and Unity Phelan) came not as a result of dramatic growth or with any sense of who the pairing was or why we should care about them.

Justin Peck's The Times Are Racing, premiered this past January, is a mixture of ballet and many other dance forms, including tap, breakdancing, hip-hop, Broadway, and tap. A mass of dancers, dressed in tennis shoes, T-shirts (some marked with the word "DEFY"), jeans, and other street clothes (costumes by Humberto Leon) pulsated to the recorded electronic music of Dan Deacon (the last four tracks from his album America), played through the theater's speakers at ear-piercing volume. The choreography is a tour de force of frenetic action and irrepressible energy, never seeming to slacken its pace for over twenty minutes, and it captures the seething rage, mostly about political realities in the United States, of the music.

The performance also offered another chance to see the choreographer in action as a dancer, because he stepped in to replace Ashly Isaacs in the second pairing of this ballet. Peck's dances with Taylor Stanley were a highlight, but in the closing sections of the ballet Peck's choreography began to repeat itself a lot, as if filling out the time of the final track. It is a brash, bracing work that captures the bristling anger and frustration of the country at this moment, but it felt uneven.

This program repeats this afternoon in the Kennedy Center Opera House.

In the Post: BSO, Thibaudet play Gershwin

Gershwin, Concerto in F / Rhapsody in Blue, J.-Y. Thibaudet, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, M. Alsop (Decca, 2010)

Charles T. Downey, With new members in BSO, striving for a cohesive sound in season opener at Strathmore (Washington Post, September 26)

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s season at its second home, the Music Center at Strathmore, opened Saturday evening. Before the second half, music director Marin Alsop introduced the 10 new musicians who have joined her ensemble’s roster since the second half of last season. This includes new principal clarinetist Yao Guang Zhai, who comes to Charm City from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

For the traditional playing of the national anthem, Alsop turned not to the newly commissioned arrangements of recent years, but one made by Igor Stravinsky as a gift to the country that adopted him during the Second World War. A few harmonic oddities, restrained for Stravinsky, enlivened the familiar tune. It complemented the bonbon that followed it, “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5,” by Heitor Villa-Lobos. Julia Bullock’s clear soprano had a subtle intensity, beauty behind a veil. The eight cellists on the accompaniment, though, did not always agree in intonation.

With the adjustment in membership, it may take some time for the BSO to regain its most cohesive sound. The orchestral passages of Gershwin’s Concerto in F were a little uncoordinated rhythmically. The beat must be absolutely clean so that the jazz-infused rhythm can swing against it. It was not quite. The high point was the solo playing of pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, smoky insouciance that felt like improvisation, as well as the bluesy trumpet solos in the slow movement. Thibaudet’s tendency to rush to the downbeat in challenging passages further unsettled the piece.

Alsop has decided to focus much of the season on the music of Beethoven. Again. Her urgent, overly fast tempo made the first movement of the composer’s Fifth Symphony a nervous blur, but the second movement felt bracing in its lack of sentimentality. In the third movement, she emphasized strong contrasts of loud and soft, a good setup for the surprise eruption of the finale. Incisive piccolo solos helped give the conclusion a martial edge.

SEE ALSO:
Julia Bullock shows almost any song can soar in her capable vocal cords (Washington Post, April 20, 2016)

Alban Gerhardt @ LoC

Britten, Cello Symphony / Cello Sonata, Cello Suites, A. Gerhardt, S. Osborne, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, A. Manze (Hyperion, 2013)

Charles T. Downey, For cellist Alban Gerhardt, a strong start but a weak second half (Washington Post, January 18)

Many themes unified the concert that German cellist Alban Gerhardt played Saturday at the Library of Congress. All of the music he performed was from the 20th century, most of the composers were American and many of the pieces were composed for Mstislav Rostropovich. The choices were to Gerhardt’s credit, but as in his last appearance with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in June, the results were mixed.

Two excellent sonatas filled the first half, beginning with Cello Sonata, Op. 6, by the young Samuel Barber. Gerhardt filled the Coolidge Auditorium with an ardent tone, especially on the high strings, slashing upward on the first movement’s main theme but infusing the second theme with Brahmsian tenderness... [Continue reading]

Alban Gerhardt (cello)
Anne-Marie McDermott (piano)
Library of Congress

SEE ALSO:
Charles T. Downey, C Major Is C Major Is C Major? (Ionarts, June 18, 2015)

At the Slovenian Embassy

Slovenija! (Songs and Duets), B. Fink, M. Fink, A. Spiri

Charles T. Downey, Violinist Lana Trotovsek gives radiant performance in Embassy Series (Washington Post, September 11, 2014)

The concerts offered by the Embassy Series bring together the interests of music, cuisine and international relations in a way that seems peculiar to the nation’s capital. The group’s season opener was a recital by Slovenian violinist Lana Trotovsek on Tuesday evening at the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia.

Two standards of the violin repertoire were the main courses of this program, beginning with Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 5, Op. 24... [Continue reading]

Lana Trotovšek, violin
Anna Shelest, piano
Embassy Series
Embassy of Slovenia

Dip Your Ears, No. 142 (Modern Piano Préludes)

Various Composers, Piano Préludes from the 20th and 21st Century Ulrike Fendel Gramola

Irresistible Unknowns

Irresistible unknowns: I know as much about Ulrike Fendel as this disc’s liner notes tell me. Nor do I know if it is her performance prowess, to any significant degree, or just the ingenious assembly of pieces that makes this release work. But it is an increasingly enthralling album (“album” specifically n that old-fashioned sense) which intrigues on first hearing and continues to grow on the ears after each successive spin. While I am usually am not keen on compilations, this finely balanced mix of fifteen composers (three world premier recordings of Wolfram Wagner, Alexander Kral, and Meinhard Ruedenauer; further including Préludes by Lyadov, Genzmer, Rota, Tcherepnin, Kabalevsky, Skempton, Casella, Delius, Mompou, Shostakovich, Piazzolla, and Gershwin), this is an easy exception and newfound dear musical companion.

Ionarts-at-Large: HJ Lim, Ken Masur, and Hints of Scriabin

HJ Lim is best known for a marketing blast by EMI, eager to promote the young Korean pianist’s recording of the (almost*) complete Beethoven sonatas which was given away for a tenner on iTunes: An audacious undertaking, accompanied by cringe-worthy high-falutin’ ‘chapter-titles’ into which Lim divided the sonatas. The accompanying essays fluctuate between astute observation and reinforcing the very stereotype meant to fight: That of a self-assured young mind (itself no crime) engaged in pouty pseudo-intellectualism and self-justification: why should a twenty-something pianist not go toe-to-toe with Backhaus, Kempf, Gilels, Arrau, and the 70-some other pianists that have tackled the Beethoven sonatas.

I passed on the effort; a few cursory dips into the late sonatas on Spotify seemed to justify the focus on other Beethoven cycles projects, recent and ongoing. But as a marketing tool it was a success, still, and when HJ Lim came through town, playing with the Munich Symphony Orchestra—the number six orchestra in town—I was sufficiently intrigued to check it all out.

For a little pre-concert concert that the MSO occasionally programs, HJ Lim had picked the concert-unrelated topic of Alexander Scriabin. After an earnest, labored spoken introduction by an orchestra official, Miss Lim came on stage and performed the brief Étude Pathétique op.8/12, one of the most readily charming picks for an audience of—presumably—Scriabin neophytes, perfectly suited to have them

Read more »

Alexandre Tharaud de Retour

Charles T. Downey, Alexandre Tharaud’s expressive piano at La Maison Française
Washington Post, October 29, 2012

D. Scarlatti, Sonatas, A. Tharaud (2011) Le Bœuf sur le Toit, A. Tharaud et al. (2012)

Where some pianists thrill with fanfaronade, Alexandre Tharaud teases out the piano’s delicate side, weaving threads of sound into exquisite lace patterns. The French pianist returned to La Maison Française on Friday night, in the intimate auditorium where he gave his last solo recital here in 2008.

Tharaud’s program opened with five of the 18 sonatas on his superlative Domenico Scarlatti recording, released last year. The Scarlatti sonatas often show up on recitals as flashy encores, but Tharaud reads them more like expressive tableaux, landscapes traced with a few strokes of ink. He has written that he chose from more than 500 such sonatas by Scarlatti by “allowing myself to be guided by my fingers.” The zippier sonatas certainly sat easily under his agile hands, but it was the reclusive melancholy of K. 481 that stood out for its exquisitely shaded shyness. [Continue reading]

Alexandre Tharaud, piano
Music by Scarlatti, Ravel, Chopin, Liszt
La Maison Française

SEE ALSO:
Steve Smith, Fingertips With the Force of Nature (New York Times, October 25)

Marie-Aude Roux, Alexandre Tharaud et les fantômes du cabaret (Le Monde, October 4)

Jens F. Laurson, Original and Happy Freaks: Alexandre Tharaud’s Scarlatti (Ionarts, December 8, 2011)

---, Tharaud: A Case of Perpetual Puppy (Ionarts, December 3, 2011)

Charles T. Downey, Alexandre Tharaud (Washington Post, October 27, 2008)

Gershwin for the 21st Century

Charles T. Downey, New York Festival of Song pokes gentle fun at politics in Vocal Arts D.C. show
Washington Post, October 24, 2012

Gershwin, Of Thee I Sing / Let 'Em Eat Cake, 1987 studio cast recording, M. Tilson Thomas [MP3]

The chance to hear some gentle fun poked at America’s political obsessions was welcome Monday night, especially as it coincided with the final presidential debate. The occasion was the 25th anniversary of the New York Festival of Song, which gave its annual performance for Vocal Arts D.C. in the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater.

To celebrate the milestone, artistic director Steven Blier revived “Mr. Gershwin Goes to Washington,” a 1997 compilation of songs from George and Ira Gershwin’s three politically themed musicals, woven together with updated twists by Laurence Maslon. Alongside a lot of (perhaps too many) Gershwin songs, from “Strike Up the Band,” “Of Thee I Sing,” and “Let ’Em Eat Cake” — plus the Burton Lane song “In Our United State,” included because Ira Gershwin wrote the lyrics — were easy jokes about the 47 percent and binders full of women. [Continue reading]

Mr. Gershwin Goes to Washington
New York Festival of Song
Vocal Arts D.C.
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

SEE ALSO:
Vivien Schweitzer, On a Political Stage, It’s Gershwin by a Landslide (New York Times, October 22)

Emily Cary, Gershwin and politics -- a winning, witty partnership (Washington Examiner, October 20)

Dip Your Ears, No. 124 ("get happy")

"get happy", Rodgers, Berlin, Gershwin et al., Jenny Lin Steinway & Sons [Release date 30.10.12]

A new release by Jenny Lin – a long time ionarts favorite in Shostakovich and Mompou (Best Recordings of 2011) and various clever piano exotica – is always something to delight about. Even when it is ‘only’ one of “virtuoso show tunes for piano”, titled Get Happy… I suppose.

Hodge-podge releases of light virtuoso piano tunes aren’t up my alley in the first place, but they can be when they’re a little more diverse than Richard Rodgers up and down, Irving Berlin, enriched with fluffy Gershwin. I very much prefer Michael Sheppard’s such collection, which includes Rodgers’ “The Carousel Waltz” and “My Favorite Things” and Earl Wild and Stephen Hough transcriptions, just as “Get Happy”, but also Barber and Bolcolm and Crumb. That’s no fault of Lin’s wholly amiable playing, but it’s hard to not think that her talents are wasted on an album of hotel-lobby pianism, presumably meant for us to say: “Play it again, Jenny”. But on second thought: Could you play something else, please?

Leslie Amper @ NGA

Charles T. Downey, Pianist Leslie Amper offers a slice of the soundtrack to George Bellows’s era
Washington Post, June 26, 2012

Henry Cowell Plays His Own Piano Music

Can we re-create the sound world of a previous era? That was the goal of pianist Leslie Amper in a concert hosted by the National Gallery of Art on Sunday evening. In conjunction with the museum’s exhibition of the works of American painter George Bellows, Amper performed American music from the first quarter of the 20th century, when Bellows was active, and Chopin’s music admired by the painter’s pianist wife.

In terms of technical or interpretative accomplishment, there was not much to inspire wonder, but the American selections, rarely heard in concert, proved worthwhile. Amper dived into Henry Cowell’s “Tides of Manaunaun,” creating a vast rumble of waves on the elbow-to-fist left-hand clusters under an almost trite, vaguely Celtic right-hand melody. Amper grouped this daring work with more tonal selections, Edward MacDowell’s “Joy of Autumn” and Amy Beach’s “Honeysuckle” (from her collection “From Grandmother’s Garden”), the latter a sort of Chopinesque polonaise. The more demanding sections of Charles Griffes’s piano sonata were rough around the edges, including a couple of memory slips. But the “Thoreau” movement from Charles Ives’s “Concord” sonata had an idyllic dreaminess, wandering amid half-voiced echoes and wistful rhythmic freedom, albeit without the optional flute part that Ives added, a ghostly evocation of the instrument that Thoreau often played while boating on Walden Pond. [Continue reading]

Leslie Amper, piano
Lecture and Concert
National Gallery of Art

Screening of The New York Hat, a 16-minute silent short by D. W. Griffith, made just three years before The Birth of a Nation, starring Mary Pickford and Lionel Barrymore

Recital program:
Charles Griffes, Piano Sonata
Henry Cowell, The Tides of Manaunaun
Charles Macdowell, New England Idyls
Ives, Piano Sonata No. 2 ("Concord, Mass., 1840-60") -- fourth movement ("Thoreau")

From Thoreau's Flute by Louisa May Alcott:
"Then from the flute, untouched by hands,
There came a low, harmonious breath:
'For such as he there is no death;
His life the eternal life commands;
Above man's aims his nature rose.
The wisdom of a just content
Made one small spot a continent
And turned to poetry life's prose'."

More Than Just Bassoonery

Mozart / Rossini / Kreutzer / Crusell, K. Geoghegan, BBC Philharmonic, G. Noseda (Chandos, 2010) French Bassoon Works, K. Geoghegan, P. Fisher (Chandos, 2009) Wolf-Ferrari, Orchestral Works, K. Geoghegan, BBC Philharmonic, G. Noseda (Chandos, 2009)

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

Scottish bassoonist Karen Geoghegan had quite a time just getting to the Music Room of the Phillips Collection, for her recital on Sunday afternoon. Problems obtaining a U.S. visa and flight cancellations almost scuttled the event, but she eventually made it to Washington earlier that morning. It is not an easy thing for a bassoonist to make a career as a soloist, and Geoghegan owes her notoriety to an uneasy association. When she appeared, in 2007, on the BBC reality show Classical Star, someone at Chandos Records took notice and signed her to a recording deal. The intersection of popular culture and classical music may raise some eyebrows at first, but as this innovative, well-played recital showed, there is no question that Geoghegan has chops. The mechanisms that launch a talented musician into a larger career are almost always fickle, so what makes a showcase competition that much more legitimate than a trashy television show? Well, besides the obvious.

You might think that not much has been written for the solo bassoon, and in a way you would be right. Bassoonists have to be more resourceful when selecting repertoire for a recital than, say, a violinist. Bassoonists likely know all or most of the works on this recital -- and there are more on Geoghegan's recent CD of French bassoon works -- but the general listener may be surprised just how well some recent composers have written for the instrument. Interferences, by Roger Boutry, is an ingenious but also fun piece that sets the piano and bassoon in opposition, with some sections in different tempos, but also with jazzy extended harmony and some Stravinsky-esque barbaric passages. The longest piece was a full-fledged sonata by Gustav Schreck (E♭ major, op. 9), with a first movement shot through Romantic yearning and a flexible sense of rubato. In the second movement Geoghegan spun out a lovely legato line, with British pianist Timothy End, playing sensitive accompaniment, providing a tango-like background for some sections.

Schreck's third movement plays on the comic nature often ascribed to the bassoon, also featured in an even more virtuosic light in the Introduction and Polonaise, op. 9, by bassoonist and composer Carl Jacobi. While that piece impressed more by its fireworks than anything else, a few other miniatures showed the bassoon's tuneful, exotic, and even sensuous side. Elgar's Romance, op. 62, originally accompanied by orchestra but played here in a piano reduction, was a moody little bonbon, with turbulent and soaring writing for the bassoon and whiffs of cocktail piano. Henri Dutilleux has disowned his Sarabande et Cortège for bassoon and piano, from 1942, because its early style is too tonal: its delightful melodies and the absurd grotesquerie of the conclusion could be Poulenc and no less enjoyable for their lack of modernist rigor. Most surprising of all was the success of a new arrangement of Gershwin's song Summertime, published by David Arnold in 2008. Most of the tune was set in the bassoon's dulcet high register, with a surprise modulation into the middle section in which the piano takes the melody and the bassoon is given freedom to riff. The bassoon is much more than just a clown.

Two Jons at Dumbarton Oaks

Read my review published today in the Style section of the Washington Post:

Brahms Clarinet Sonatas [REVIEW] Novacek / D'Rivera / Gershwin

Charles T. Downey, Clarinetist Jon Manasse and pianist Jon Nakamatsu at Dumbarton Oaks
Washington Post, April 19, 2011

The clarinet is a chameleon among instruments, finding a habitat in classical music, jazz, the marching band and klezmer. The intersection between the first two of those was the subject of a recital by clarinetist Jon Manasse and pianist Jon Nakamatsu on Sunday night at Dumbarton Oaks. The program included one of the Brahms clarinet sonatas from the duo’s debut recording and selections of jazz-influenced American pieces from their latest disc.

Manasse, former principal clarinetist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, has an impeccably smooth tone on the instrument, highlighted to mellow effect in the warm, restrained opening of the Second Brahms Sonata. Nakamatsu, who won the gold medal at the Van Cliburn Competition in 1997, matched and supported Manasse in polished tone, helping to create a sense of surging but contained passion in this autumnal work. Throughout the evening, neither player forced his instrument, aware of the intimate scale of the museum’s Music Room and focusing only on beauty of sound. [Continue reading]

Jon Manasse (clarinet) and Jon Nakamatsu (piano)
Friends of Music series
Dumbarton Oaks

NSO Puts Kennedy Back in Kennedy Center

It is hard to imagine the American political landscape in which President John F. Kennedy could go to Amherst College, as he did on October 26, 1963, to make a major speech about the importance of the arts in the nation's life. The occasion was in honor of Robert Frost, who had spoken at the young president's inauguration, but among many interesting things about the role of the artist in society, Kennedy made the following revelatory statement:

I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft. I look forward to an America which will steadily raise the standards of artistic accomplishment and which will steadily enlarge cultural opportunities for all of our citizens. And I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for its civilization as well.

These are words that are engraved, alongside other excerpts from Kennedy's speeches, on the terrace wall of the performing arts center that bears his name, at the edge of the Potomac River. Within a year or two of Kennedy's assassination, Lyndon Johnson created national endowments for the arts and humanities that were intended to give birth to the artistic blossoming Kennedy envisioned. In a month-long festival in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Kennedy's inauguration, the Kennedy Center brings us back to JFK's admonishment that "In free society art is not a weapon and it does not belong to the spheres of polemic and ideology." Oh, if only that were true.

Last Thursday night, official Washington at least paid lip service to the ideal, with a massive tribute concert involving the National Symphony Orchestra, American Ballet Theater, and others. It was the sort of event I was only too glad to miss, but I was able to hear the first of the NSO's subsequent concerts, on Saturday night, that included the piece commissioned by the orchestra for the event. American composer Peter Lieberson had the misfortune to receive the commission, the musical equivalent of the sort of official doggerel ordered by monarchs from their poets laureate. Falling into the Copland Lincoln Portrait trap -- see Peter Schickele's hilarious send-up of the genre -- Lieberson provided a background score of nondescript solemnity to some excerpts of Kennedy's speeches, read dutifully by Richard Dreyfuss. Lots of plaintive cello solos, a momentum-gathering timpani beat, hints of Bernstein and Copland: it made even Kennedy's words seem prosaic. The piece was introduced by a lionizing film, featuring the remembrances of Kennedy adviser Ted Sorensen, and followed, after intermission, by an equally negligible trifle, Bernstein's Fanfare for the Inauguration of JFK, in its first performance by the NSO. Why start now? At only a minute or so longer, I would have much preferred to hear Stravinsky's Elegy for JFK (not that it is necessarily a piece for the ages, but at least there is some substance).

The point of including Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story on the program, I suppose, was to offer a distillation of the hopeful feelings of the era -- the musical was premiered in 1957. Amid some rather discombobulated playing -- a shaky sense of rhythmic ensemble pervaded the work -- the most musical moments came in the introduction to the Somewhere tune, for harp and lustrous solo strings. Conductor Christoph Eschenbach, who might not be expected to have the most innate grasp on this sort of American music, gave the percussion section its head, and they obligingly drowned out most of the other sections at several points in the Mambo and Cool ("Boy, boy, crazy boy") arrangements. The latter tune was taken at an edgily fast tempo, which gave the work an exciting climax but at the loss of any chance at subtlety.

Other Reviews: Joe Banno, National Symphony Orchestra (Washington Post, January 24) Terry Ponick, National Symphony Orchestra shines in JFK tribute (Washington Times, January 24) Tim Smith, National Symphony marks JFK anniversary with new Lieberson work (Baltimore Sun, January 23) Anne Midgette, Kennedy Center opens JFK commemoration with distinguished crowd (Washington Post, January 21)

We and others have already said everything there is to say about American pianist Tzimon Barto. It goes without saying that a Barto performance will be independent, even willful, and his take on Gershwin's piano concerto was no different. If the thing you most enjoy in a performance is not having any idea exactly what the performer will do next -- and neither conductor nor accompanying orchestra seeming to know, either (in this regard, it did not even help Oscar Levant, in his famous Gershwin hallucination in An American in Paris, to be at once soloist, conductor, and every player in the orchestra) -- this rendition was for you. Unlike Fazil Say's equally erratic rendition of Rhapsody in Blue with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra a few years ago, Barto's affected manipulations of tempo, strange twists and turns of phrase, and physical gyrations did not add up to anything compelling. It does not bode well for the NSO's debut on the Ondine label, the record deal that Eschenbach brought with him to Washington: this program, recorded live, will be the first recording by the NSO released since 2001.

'HIP' Gershwin

Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue, orch. F. Grofé (inter alia), L. Mayorga, Harmonie Ensemble/New York, S. Richman (released on May 11, 2010) Harmonia Mundi HMU 907492 | 54'46"

The one reservation we had about Marin Alsop's recent recording of Grofé's arrangements of Gershwin, with Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, was that it might be better to hear a more jazz-oriented ensemble play those pieces, a group closer to Paul Whiteman's band, for whom they were created. This new Harmonia Mundi release, which came out shortly after that one, answers that question with the performances of Steven Richman's Harmonie Ensemble/New York. The Rhapsody in Blue recorded here features pianist Lincoln Mayorga, one-time staff pianist for the Walt Disney Co. and composer of the score to Fame, and it is not as daring or polished as Thibaudet's. The wind sound is also a little raucous in terms of tone and intonation, with the veteran clarinetist Al Gallodoro (in his 90s at the time of the recording sessions, which occurred not long before he died) on the iconic solo that opens the work. The Rhapsody in Blue is not paired here with the Concerto in F, which is such a signature piece for Thibaudet, but the selection of arrangements of Gershwin songs is also welcome. A slightly boring Yankee Doodle Blues can be compared with a restored version of a 1909 Edison Fireside phonograph recording. All in all, this feels more "authentic" than the Thibaudet/Alsop recording, but still not a necessity.

Thibaudet Goes Home, Plays Gershwin

Gershwin, Concerto in F / Rhapsody in Blue, J.-Y. Thibaudet, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, M. Alsop (released on April 27, 2010) Decca 478 2189 | 57'24"

Jean-Yves Thibaudet is French, but he lives in the United States and, for the most part, has his career here, too. On the occasion of the release of his new recording of Gershwin's Concerto in F and Rhapsody in Blue, in the Ferde Grofé arrangements for Paul Whiteman's jazz band -- yes, the album with the photograph of Thibaudet as Andy Warhol, apparently -- Renaud Machart interviewed Thibaudet (Jean-Yves Thibaudet, le "French Pianist", June 1) for Le Monde (my translation):

His well-known taste for cars, clothing, designer watches, and diamonds has often made him seem too easily like what he is not. Is he "disliked" in France, as some claim, for his flamboyant style, his insolent virtuosity, and his high fees? The Lyon-born pianist clarifies this troubled image for Le Monde.

Do you like to play fast?

At the start of my career, yes, I liked it. Slow movements annoyed me, I was waiting impatiently for the finale, and then I played quickly, too quickly, in effect. People change with age and experience. Today I love the profondeur of the adagios, and my passion for cars allows me to satisfy that taste for speed...

You manage to perform some lesser-known concertos, like the Khachaturian or Gershwin's Concerto in F, which you have just recorded...

Since I perform lots of concertos with the same orchestras each season, in America or on international tour, I have to keep my repertoire fresh. The Khachaturian is not as well known but always "works" with audiences. The problem is convincing the organizers and conductors, some of whom have refused to conduct it even before having opened the score. I play Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F in their symphonic versions for practical reasons, but I have always meant to record the extraordinary original version for jazz band, which gives a special punch and poetry to the works. We had to convince the holders of the rights to allow the score to be used, but I am happy about it.

People say that you don't play much in France because your fees are too high...

I don't know what is meant by a high fee: I am paid the same here as people pay me everywhere in the world. I can also play for no fee if the project or the cause interests me. Just know that I have regular offers from French institutions. Alas, many of them program concerts far less in advance than their American counterparts, who generally work three years in advance. It has happened that I have had to refuse something because I was not available, but not, as far as I know, for issues of money.

Do you always know what your agents are doing: isn't it in their interest not to lower your "value" in order to keep their 10% cut as large as possible?

Jack Mastroianni, my current agent, is not like that, but I know of one case where one of my former agents pretended that I was not available when actually I was, perhaps for some concern about the fee or because the location did not seem "important" to him. But I learned about this much later. Once again, I would be thrilled to come play in France as soon as my schedule permits it: I get offers regularly, and I absolutely do not feel disliked or cursed. When Kurt Masur and the Orchestre national de France invited me on an international tour, I was proud and thrilled about it.

Marin Alsop programmed both of the Gershwin pieces, as well as his variations on I Got Rhythm (also made for Whiteman, but in the slightly different version found in Gershwin's manuscript), at the BSO's concerts last November. (We had to miss it, as did the Washington Post, but Tim Smith was there for the Baltimore Sun.) The tracks presented on this disc were recorded live at those concerts (the ones at the Meyerhoff, not at Strathmore), preserving some of the edgy energy -- and some of the inevitable errors and misalignments -- of live performance. The arrangements are definitely worth hearing (plink of the banjo, wail of the saxophone, and all), worth owning as an alternate to your favorite orchestral version, and could even pass muster as your only version -- if you are looking to buy one, and if the jazz side of the jazz-classical tightrope Gershwin liked is what most appeals to you. On the other hand, I am not sure that I buy Thibaudet's claim that he no longer lives only for fast movements, at least judging by the velocity of the interpretations he has recorded here, and not always in coordination with Alsop and her band. The members of the BSO included on the project play well, and with a convincing jazz-like flair, but it still might be interesting to hear these versions played by an actual jazz ensemble more like Whiteman's band.

SVILUPPO:
By coincidence, Joe Banno's review of this disc appeared on the Washington Post Web site today, and Tim Smith reviewed it for the Baltimore Sun. Somewhere, a publicist is wetting himself or herself.

Poignant 'Porgy' Returns to the Kennedy Center

Eric Owens (Porgy) and Morenike Fadayomi (Bess), Washington National Opera (photo by Karin Cooper)

The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess defies categorization, a piece of our cultural heritage that one does not get to see in full production very often but that draws audience-members in droves. Francesca Zambello’s production, since its premiere in 2005 at Washington National Opera, has had performances in Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco, and now, beginning this past Saturday night, Washingtonians are getting a second look. The single set design, swiveling and changing ever so slightly for different locales and moments, is gorgeous. Complete with transformative lighting by Mark McCullough that is somehow a character unto itself, the multi-faceted and -leveled set serves the show well. Porgy and Bess takes place in the 1920s, but Zambello’s production hearkens to the 1950s, when “racial tensions were just about to boil over,” as she puts it. While the show is obviously dated, with themes of race, gambling, addiction, violence, and sex, it is also still just as relevant today as it was in 1935. Despite being set in South Carolina, it is also particularly poignant in our city, which has been, and still is, a unique witness to the African-American story.

Homegrown soprano Alyson Cambridge was one of the standout singers, especially in a gorgeous rendition of Summertime. The chorus and all comprimario roles were filled by local talent. This opera demands across-the-board typecasting, and while the roles were all filled with excellent actors who fit the bill, many, unfortunately, lacked singing prowess. The insatiable Sportin’ Life was portrayed by Jermaine Smith, who often made up for a less than substantial voice with dancing and over-the-top mannerisms. Maria, sung by Gwendolyn Brown, was a joy to watch as a particularly strong presence and character, but also a weak voice. A notable exception was Eric Owens as the steadfast Porgy, with a velvet voice that soared over the orchestra. Particularly moving was the duet Bess, You Is My Woman Now with Morenike Fadayomi as Bess. Owens and Fadayomi blended beautifully, both vocally and emotionally. Fadayomi also shone, but was, unfortunately, often overpowered by conductor John Mauceri’s orchestra. In fact, the general balance between singers and orchestra was frequently off, made worse by a weak chorus and thick orchestration.

Other Articles: Anne Midgette, National Opera's 'Porgy and Bess' (Washington Post, March 22) ---, Alyson Cambridge returns home for Washington National Opera's 'Porgy and Bess' (Washington Post, March 19) Emily Cary, Washington National Opera marks 75th anniversary of 'Porgy and Bess' (Washington Examiner, March 16)

Also of note was Lisa Daltirus, as Serena, singing during her husband’s funeral, which garnered the first spontaneous applause from the audience for her stunning and haunting lamentation. Eric Greene's performance as Jake, in the early number A Woman Is a Sometime Thing, was perfect in its homey richness and chemistry with Cambridge, as his wife, Clara. All in all, the production itself is beautiful -- a fitting accolade to George Gershwin’s vision, and never trite. While some of the cast members were more actors than singers, the raw emotion of this show was certainly something to witness. As Porgy hobbled off stage in search of Bess, and all else lost, at the very end, the striking light and angled exit left that gut feeling -- this show is important, and Zambello’s production proved just that.

Porgy and Bess continues through April 3, with tickets to four recently added performances now also on sale.

BSO Gala with Lang Lang

Read my review in the Style section of today's Washington Post:

Charles T. Downey, BSO Kicks Off the Season in Style
Washington Post, September 14, 2009

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra opened its season with a black-tie gala concert on Saturday night, and it was heartening to see Meyerhoff Hall nearly full for a change, especially given the poor state of the economy. (A failing budget led BSO musicians to agree to a major salary cut this summer.)

Conductor Marin Alsop delivered the sort of program expected in these circumstances -- peppy, pretty and peppered with audience-pleasing fare. She gave homage once again to Leonard Bernstein with a raucous reading of the "Candide" overture, at the edge of unevenness. A video of Bernstein working with Alsop in the 1980s, his arm around her shoulders avuncularly, reinforced the intended message of filial devotion. [Continue reading]

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
Gala Concert (with Lang Lang, piano)
Meyerhoff Symphony Hall (Baltimore, Md.)

Bernstein, Overture to Candide; James Price Johnson, Drums; Gershwin, Summertime and An American in Paris; Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto No. 1

BSO's Casual Gershwin

Miss Ionarts and Master Ionarts, on the concert reporting beat

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra often offers a slimmed-down version of their weekly programs, called the Casual Concert, presented with no intermission on Saturday mornings at 11 am. This past weekend, it seemed like as good a time as any to pile Master Ionarts and Miss Ionarts into their car-seats to see what it was all about. On the surface, it was not really all that different. While a few in the audience wore shorts and/or T-shirts, most people were dressed about as casually as they are for a regular evening concert, while a few others still dressed more formally. On stage, the orchestra "dressed down" to jackets and ties, but Marin Alsop and this week's soloist, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, wore what they generally wear. Whatever one may have expected in terms of changes in audience behavior, the same sense of decorum associated with concerts remained. Well, the audience did applaud after the first movement of the Concerto in F, understandably enough, and we are happy to report that not a finger was wagged.

Jean-Yves Thibaudet, pianist

Thibaudet must tire of playing these two Gershwin concertos -- his recording of Rhapsody in Blue with the BBC Symphony Orchestra showed up again on his recent Movie Album. One had the sense, listening to this performance of both of them back to back, of Thibaudet searching for something new in the way he played them. While he did drive himself over and past many of the denser passages, as if daring himself to push the envelope, he did not hit on something truly striking, as Fazil Say did with the BSO a few years ago. His strength was in the suave, bluesy side of the works, as Thibaudet coolly explored every riff and twinkle of this mixture of jazz and Ravel. Alsop followed that lead, justifying her programming of Gershwin on a non-pops program in her earnest introduction to the concert. It is what it is, so enjoy it.

Other Reviews: Tim Smith, Soloist, BSO play Gershwin with vim (Baltimore Sun, May 24) Ronni Reich, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (Washington Post, May 26)

What was promised in the promotional materials was the original 1924 orchestration for the premiere of Rhapsody in Blue, by the Paul Whiteman Band (really a swing orchestra), but the program notes claimed this was the later orchestral arrangement. Ferde Grofé was the mastermind behind transferring Gershwin's score for two pianos to that original Whiteman Band arrangement, as well as two revisions in 1926 and 1942, for chamber and full orchestra. Grofé later went on to teach orchestration at Juilliard, among many other things. Listening to the premiere performance, or most of it, online (Part 1 and Part 2) is an enlightening experience. Among other things, you can hear Whiteman's clarinet player, Ross Gorman, on the now iconic opening glissando, a touch that was improvised by Gorman and later added by Gershwin to the score. The BSO played with polish and verve, with a smooth opening solo from the clarinet and well-behaved trumpet lines. The group was not always exactly together with Thibaudet, but not to any disconcerting degree. The verdict from the younger members of the Ionarts family was unanimous: they listened attentively and bopped along to some of the bouncier parts. Fortunately, at a Casual Concert it is alright for a small child to giggle softly when delighted.

Next week, under the baton of Miguel Harth-Bedoya, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra undertakes a program of South American music called The Inca Trail. On Friday (May 30, 8 pm) at Strathmore, and on Saturday (May 31, 8 pm) in Baltimore.