Recent Reviews

BOSTON EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL: Marc-Antoine Charpentier's La Couronne de Fleurs and La Descente d'Orphee

Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs, Musical Directors; Gilbert Blin, Stage Director; Anna Watkins, Costume Designer, Melinda Sullivan, Choreographer; Robert Mealy, Concertmaster; Kathy Fay, Executive Director

November 27, 2011

La Couronne de Fleurs began in a sunny French Baroque mood wtih maidens dropping flowers in front of a small ensemble joined by two airy male dancers. The singer praised her flowers and called forth a troupe of shepherds and ladies. The dancing and music supported each other effortlessly with such gorgeous lines of poetry in the music as "Nightingales listen to the loveliest of our songs and die of pleasure and of envy". A trio of male voices interjected a sweet, sustained interlude about fountains, including some antiphony. Lute, recorder, gamba and choral singing were consistently high level. The small Jordan Hall stage was used to great effect from the beginning of this production.

The La Descente d'Orphee (Tale of Orpheus and Eurydice) continued the motif "May our songs go through the air". What followed was lyricism at its best, sung in a duo by two maidens, preceding the marriage of Orpheus and Eurydice. All the sweetness is rent asunder when Eurydice is bitten by an unseen snake and dies. Beautiful and moving choral singing followed, showing real pathos. Tenor, Aaron Sheehan, sang the part of Orpheus with conviction. (I should note here that Mr. Sheehan seemed to inhabit his Orpheus with more passion as the operas progressed.) The god, Apollo (sung finely by bass-baritone, Olivier Laquierre) advised Orpheus to petition Pluto in Hades to win his Eurydice back.

Following intermission, we are led into Hades, Pluto's domain. What follow on-stage was one of the most fully realized dramatic sections of the production. The legendary tormented Tantulus, Ixion and Titus appeared among the damned. Pluto (Doug Williams) entered, singing with a terrific bass-baritone and fabulous stage presence. Orpheus promised his obedience to fulfill his mission -- "My lyre cannot express my martyrdom". Proserpina sang with full heart and supportively both emotionally and musically of Orpheus. Aaron Sheehan's Orpheus sang with more passion when confronting Pluto. Pluto reminded all with great flourish that "the shades can never return from the empire of the dead". Doug Williams assumed his Pluto with great panache! Choral work was bright and lovely. The drama ramped up when Eurydice's veiled shade moved across the stage. And finally, Pluto plucked back Eurydice from the shades. The tormented dead tried to keep Orpheus in Hades as he had beguiled them but to no avail. Orpheus and Eurydice are free, "flying to the sky with waxen wings".

This was a splendid and fully realized set of chamber operas. The orchestral ensemble, dancers, chorus, and stage transformations were all first rate. Soloists Doug Williams (Pluto), Carrie Hennaman Shaw (Eurydice), Aaron Sheehan (Orpheus), Olivier Laquerre (Apollo) and Mireille Asselin (Proserpina) sang well alone and in combination with each other. I very much hope the production will be recorded. I would certainly like to visit it again.

Carolyn Gregory

BOSTON MODERN ORCHESTRA PROJECT: Agócs, McPhee, Colgrass, and Vivier

Gil Rose, conductor

November 20, 2011

The first of four works by Canadian composers, Kati Agócs’s “Vessel” (2010) is scored for three vocal soloists, singing (in motet-like counterpoint) three different poems: “i carry your Heart (i carry it in),” “The Garden of Delights,” and “His Boat.” The instrumentation is spare, and the voices interweave with percussion, violin, cello, harp, bells. The three women sang with diminished quotient of vibrato, which was most appropriate to this kind of work -- overdoing of bel canto techniques would have overwhelmed and distorted the balance and intimacy of the work. Despite its beauty, I felt that the emotional content of the poems just never percolated into the melodic material or spirit of the performance. Even true medieval ballades, with their limited musical vocabulary, can convey quite a bit of warmth and feeling. As beautiful and lucid as this performance was, I didn't feel how the emotion of the poetry was promoting the work. To summarize: beautiful and well-performed, but somehow a bit cold.

Colin McPhee is probably most known for bringing Balinese music into the Western world’s musical consciousness, despite his having a relatively small musical output and many of his pieces having become lost. The Symphony No. 2 is one of his later pieces, written while he was eking out a living as a writer New York, following an unhappy departure from Bali in 1939. It was composed in a period of economic and physical distress, before recognition of his importance landed him a professorship at UCLA in 1960. The symphony is in three movements, beginning with building energy over a short ostinato. The Balinese influence is in the pentatonic scale that permeates the work and in the percussion that is always ready to enter the musical line. But unlike later works of minimalists such as Steve Reich, or composers like Evan Ziporyn who directly incorporate Balinese style, these melodies, according to McPhee’s own description, “no longer maintain their original Balinese character.” Parts of the symphony have a large, movie-score-like narrative feeling. Some the melodic material feels more middle-eastern than Balinese. Much of it feels large and romantic. Under Gil Rose’s direction, the orchestra performed flawlessly, as usual, with some extraordinarily beautiful horn solos answering themes announced in the strings. McPhee’s music can feel somewhat directionless at times, and perhaps this is another point of similarity with the hypnotic quality that Balinese Gamelans can produce.

Michael Colgrass’s piece, “Letter From Mozart,” (1976) written as a “response” to an invented letter from Mozart to Colgrass, was the concert's high point. Notably, the piece has two conductors, presumably for the Mozart and non-Mozart parts of the work. Colgrass comes from a jazz background, having spent much of his early career as a Jazz drummer and freelance percussion composer. You can hear his energetic percussion throughout the “non-Mozart” parts of the work. “Letter” opens with what sounds like a never-heard-before Mozart piano concerto, but after a few minutes, the composer shifts gears into an atonal piece, full of percussion, pauses, and playfulness. The orchestra handled the transitions beautifully and seamlessly. “Letter” alternates between the classical motifs, ethereal atonal pauses, energetic dissonant sections, dance-like sections with accordion, and intrusion of piano, and an oompah band. Despite this mashup, it has more horizontality and space than a Charles Ives work: the layers overlap, but sound distinct. Here, the orchestra handled the frequent changes in tone and texture easily and lightly. It is really innovative – light but genuinely engaging, and the contrasting musical modes worked.

Claude Vivier is a writer of “spectral music,” a style whereby compositional decisions are determined by the analysis of sound spectra. Vivier’s compositions span the time when he was booted out of the Roman Catholic novitiate until his untimely death by stabbing in 1983 the hands of a young Parisian man.

“Orion” is performed flawlessly. It is a really interesting work, restless, moving between small performing forces and the full orchestra. It opens with a haunting trumpet, whose varied melodies are echoed distantly. The orchestra moves immediately to a “Rite of Spring”-like passage, with sharp punctuated rhythms, clanging with bells and percussion. It quickly moves again to a quieter mode, where the trumpet once again holds sway. This kind of alternation continues, violins continuing in ostinato fashion against increasingly agitated themes that seem to be built upon the opening trumpet themes.

It’s a restless piece, where you hear phrases that remind you of many late 19th and early 20th-century symphonic works (Bartok, Stravinsky, Wagner). Distant bells and atonal melodies are underpinned by major chords. The pauses bring back the spare themes played by small groups alternating with the full orchestra. Somewhere, you imagine pieces of Terry Riley inserting themselves. But the piece is distinctive and its style is elusive. Near the end, voices enter surprisingly. The ending, a wall of brick-like major chords following more distant-sounding bells clanging, like an enormous gothic cathedral, imposing and frightening, ends the piece, with a fadeout. I think Rose could bring out more dynamic contrast from his orchestra, because the performance felt slightly constrained.

This was a fine concert, promoting the music of composers who are in some way Canadian. I found it intriguing to discover how many of composers have been touched by the music of Bali.

Matt Temple

HANDEL AND HAYDN SOCIETY: Pergolesi

Rinaldo Alessandrini, conductor; Liesbeth Devos, soprano; Emily Righter, mezzo-soprano

October 30, 2011

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s Salve Regina and Stabat Mater were written at the end of his life when he was dying from tuberculosis and they are both among the greatest jewels of the Italian Baroque period. The Handel and Haydn Society performed a mix of Baroque masterworks including the two Pergolesi masterworks along with a well known Bach harpsichord concerto and a shorter piece by Italian composer, Geminiani.

Geminiani’s Concerto Grosso in G minor, opus 3, number 3 opened the concert with wonderful crispness, conducted with vigor by Rinaldo Alessandrini. There was a rich ebb and flow to the piece, drawing in the audience immediately as if we were seated in a royal European court. It was intimate, engaging and a great concert beginning.

The young Belgian soprano, Liesbeth Devos, completely commanded the Jordan Hall stage for the performance of Pergolesi’s masterpiece, Salve Regina. Beginning solemnly and slowly, Ms. Devos sang with excellent  range and genuine emotional depth.  Her singing was subtle and dramatic, majestic in the upper range. Her voice was tender and flexible and well modulated. The Handel and Haydn Society orchestral ensemble shifted between animation and languor gracefully, embracing the deeply religious theme of the composition. Fine violin work allowed the rich musical velvets to drape and flow. This was a splendid, profound performance of a great piece of music.

One of Johann Sebastien Bach’s short masterpieces, the Harpsichord Concerto in D (BMW 1054), was next performed with flourish. It was a full-hearted and rhythmically highly focused performance with nice percussive emphasis. The harpsichord hummed throughout, lending an underlying flow of sound. The adagio movement was courtly, written around a narrow melodic line without much embellishment, enhanced by the darker sound from the cellos and bass. The final allegro movement brought us back to a “happy” harpsichord that swelled with joyful expansiveness in true Baroque fashion.

Pergolesi’s masterwork, Stabat Mater, followed after a program intermission.  Soprano, Liesbeth Devos, was joined by acclaimed American mezzo-soprano, Emily Righter. From the beginning, the weaving of the two women singers was really first rate as they clearly partnered each other, a requirement for Pergolesi’s masterpiece. The Stabat Mater has operatic intensity with its high level of sustained drama and need for virtuosic singers. This reviewer was happily rewarded by this performance which was the best I have heard  since hearing it in Paris in the church where it was originally composed during Pergolesi’s lifetime. The orchestral ensemble and singing duo fully embraced the levels of profundity, tragedy and mystery within the music which transported the audience to a very different world than that of the 21st century. There was good balance between virtuosic pacing and the more legato and sustained sections of the composition.  For the second time during the concert,  Ms. Devos’ voice soared with beauty, and was supported nicely by the orchestral ensemble. Ms. Righter’s mezzo was very dramatic, elegant and powerful. What a pairing! The performance included the right amount of breathing space between the more active sections of the composition. Conductor Alessandrini almost danced while conducting a masterwork he clearly knows and reveres.

What a treat to attend a concert that featured autumnal, graceful, profound and joyful music.

Carolyn Gregory

THE CHAMELEON ARTS ENSEMBLE: Barber, Rouse, Beethoven

Janna Baty, mezzo-soprano; Deborah Boldin, flute; Gloria Chien, piano; Gabriela Diaz, violin; Joanna Kurkowicz, violin; Kelli O’Connor, clarinet; Rafael Popper-Keizer, cello; Anna Reinersman, harp; Scott Woolweaver, viola

October 2, 2011

In this first concert of their 2011/2012 season, the Chameleon Ensemble reared up like that statue of the mounted Peter the Great in Palace Square, St. Petersburg. And like Palace Square itself, the opening piece was a strange combination of contemporary times and the ancient religious past.

It was mezzo-soprano Janna Baty’s task to kick the season off with Samuel Barber's lesser-known and highly quirky “Hermit Songs.” Originally written for a higher pitched soprano (Leontyne Price), the Hermit Songs assumed an intriguing cast through the medium of Baty’s voluptuous voice, bursting with vibrato effects and plunging deep into dark tonalities. She is a dramatic, not a lyric soprano and that is evident from the very first piece “At St. Patrick's Purgatory.” With keen melodic variation, she sang of a monk who agonizes about not being able to wail convincingly enough about the sufferings of Christ during his pilgrimage. Another piece, “Church Bell at Night,” – simple, understated – posited the pious idea of a monk preferring to be with a chiming bell than a “light and foolish woman.” (Could he have meant any woman?). “Promiscuity” is a short two-line song that offers a slight dissonance and a bit of humor about “fair Eden” not sleeping alone. Other songs expressed ideas that listeners unfamiliar with 10th-century Irish Christian ideas might have found bizarre. (“Nothing in this world is true save, o tiny nursling, You.”)

Christopher Rouse’s Compline, although ostensibly a religious piece (the title refers to the evening prayer undertaken by monks just before retiring), is a lively frenetic work of emotional intensity, more like an erotic poem by the youthful Paul Verlaine than a contemplative prayer by some pious monk. It featured insistent string ostinatos with declarative and urgently insistent woodwinds, soaring to high registers and swooping down like falcons onto pigeons. There were more calming sections as well, but not ones that lasted very long. Placid strings soon morphed into a disquieting sequence containing undertones of sorrow. The ostinatos sounded like they were influenced by minimalism; however, in the capable hands of flutist Debra Boldin and clarinetist Kelli O’Connor , themes were handed off so vigorously between woodwinds and strings that they sometimes conveyed a non-minimalist and desperately tempestuous edge. So is this piece religious? No more religious than the semi-mad Turangalîla-Symphonie by the devoutly mad Catholic composer Olivier Messiaen. The final part sounded crepuscular and vaguely elegiac with the undercurrents dissolving into a false ending that ended up being actually poignant. The ensemble then produced a marvelous coda that faded into darkness.

Joanna Kurkowicz, Rafael Popper-Keizer, and Gloria Chien gave a vigorous reading to Beethoven's famed Archduke Trio from 1811, his middle period. The piece is famous for elevating the role of the violin and cello to be equal to that of the piano (although, to be fair, Mozart had done this to some extent already). The three musicians opened the delicate allegro moderato, slightly slower than commonly performed, but it definitely contrasted well with the windy scherzo to come. The manner in which they conveyed the lovely opening melody felt like walking with Beethoven along one his favorite sylvan pathways. The scherzo was excitable and marvelously executed. Chien’s piano work offered the audience bold sforzandos, heady contrasts between left and right hand, and varied repeats. Kurkowicz and Popper-Keizer’s pizzicatos were gentle and subtle and they gave the audience a lush string expression that was uncommonly restful. The final string dialogue was eloquent; the allegro bursting in with no break from the andante. The final presto produced a dancelike melody on piano, bumblebee-like runs on the strings, and a dark chocolate truffle of a coda.

Peter Bates

BOSTON CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY: Tsontakis, Brahms, Fauré

Steven Copes, violin, Maiya Papach, viola, Benjamin Hochman, piano, Ronald Thomas, cello

August 27, 2011

This concert took place the night before Hurricane Irene was scheduled to come through.   Nevertheless, the auditorium was quite full.   They crowd came out to hear three works performed by the Boston Chamber Music Society:   Knickknacks for Violin and Piano by George Tsontakis, Cello Sonata in E minor by Johannes Brahms, and Piano Quartet in C minor by Gabriel Fauré.   

I wasn’t familiar with Tsontakis, just a little nervous about the piece from the title he’d chosen.   I was prepared to hear an eclectic work, invoking a variety of styles from a wide variety of musical genres.  And so it was.   From the start of first movement, “Shufflling,” his arpeggios suggested minimalism; there were echoes of the late Beethoven string quartets; there was a cakewalk-like section; there were harmonies that reminded me of Philip Glass’s 5th string quartet.  (You should listen to that quartet even if you are certain you dislike Glass.) I heard echoes of Bartok and Prokofiev.   But altogether, the movement stood well by itself.

The other movements offered contrasts.   “Goodnight Lullaby” gave us a short ostinato figure from the violin in its high register.   There were more late Beethoven harmonies.   “Fandango Facade” seemed to emanate from a late romantic spirit.   Energetic performances of Steven Copes, violin, and Maiya Papach, Viola carried Tsontakis’ intentions with assurance.   They seemed very collaborative and in sync with each other.   At times, they had an almost uncanny ability to sound like an entire quartet,  perhaps enhanced by the general liveliness of Pickman Hall.   The following movement, “With Hushed Tenderness,” started with a wonderful conversation between violin and viola, a leading melody, followed by and answer, then sections where they doubled each other.  The movement sometimes felt directionless as it moved along.   For the final movement, “Bumpkinesque,” he returned to the Philip Glass-like harmonies in a highly rhythmic, dance-like, crisp performance.   Ultimately, the piece was interesting, thought-provoking, accessible, certainly worthy of attention.  I’d like to hear it again.

The Brahms cello sonata in e minor, is a well-known work.  It started well, a rich performance with excellent balance and a well-developed sense of expectation.   If you haven’t heard a live cello in a small concert hall with favorable acoustics recently, you may have forgotten how many overtones it can convey, nuances frequently lost by CDs and MP3s.    But as the movement progressed, sense of balance between cello and piano was lost.  And in the second movement,  the piano became even more ephemeral and distant.    I frequently felt I was listening to the product of a not-quite-able sound engineer, and several times, I had to suppress an urgent desire to jump up and shout, “You’ve got the balance wrong!”  In the end, the piece progressed more like for piano accompanied by cello .   Brahms loves to use the lower, darker register of his instruments, and the pianist (Hochman) and the cellist (Thomas), struggled with finding what Brahms was after.   The movement carried on, but really never seemed to find what I like to call the paragraph level: the notion that the music is sectional, that each section has integrity, and that the sections comprise a single whole.  There were some nice individual phrases, but the feeling of a directed movement and inevitability just wasn’t there.   The third movement opened more strongly.  The piano and violin struck a better balance.   But too much of the thrust of the performance managed to make the movement feel like a great, long cadence.   The finale was strong and well executed.   On the whole, the sonata needed more thought, rehearing, rehearsing.

Piano Quartet in C minor by Gabriel Fauré embodied the strengths and weakness of the previous two pieces.   There were many beautiful bits: The balance was better at the start.   In the scherzo, there was a really transcendant section where the piano is plays against a pizzicato.   But the adagio lacked dynamic range, the piano disappeared again, and there were some attack issues.

And that continued into the Allegro molto.   The Fauré piece is pretty without having very much to say, but we’ve all been to concerts where a quartet will have found some hidden inner line, brought it out, re-energized a piece.   Not here.

The audience was happily enthusiastic for the home team, applauded long and hard, brought the members of the quartet out for many bows.  But I felt only partially rewarded, and wished the quartet had spent more time asking themselves, aside from the Tsontakis piece,  what are  these composers trying to say?

Matt Temple

AMERICAN REPERTORY THEATRE: Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin, DuBose Heyward (original composers and novelist).

Directed and adapted by Diane Paulus, Suzan-Lori Parks and Diedre Murray.  Ronald K. Brown (choreographer) and Riccardo Hernandez (set designer).  Audra McDonald (Bess), Norm Lewis (Porgy), David Alan Grier (Sporting Life), Phillip Boykin (Crown)    

August 27, 2011

The American Repertory Theatre really delivers a powerhouse with their current production of the updated Porgy and Bess.  Superb stage direction and fine scene definition accompany haunting vocal performances by multiple Tony Award winner, Audra McDonald as Bess and Norm Lewis as Porgy. There’s a nice mix of respect for the original text and opera along with newly developed characterization, very welcome to the twenty first century audience. It was clear to me that the ART really did their homework before staging this new interpretation of an American classic.

This Porgy and Bess is thoroughly engaging, fast-paced and poignant. Many of the Gershwin chestnuts like “Summertime”, “Ain’t Necessarily So”, “Bess You Is My Woman” and “I’m On My Way” were treated with loving respect and freshness. The song, “Summertime”, appears like a refrain at two or three points in this two act re-interpretation. The magnificent operatic “aria” (and my single favorite song in “Porgy and Bess”) “My Man Is Gone Now”, was sung extraordinarily well by Serena (Bryonha Marie Parham) and the funeral scene’s chorus and details were rich, wrenching and memorable.  

As a childhood lover of the original Porgy and Bess with a musical father from Brooklyn who hummed Broadway tunes frequently, I was happy to see this production’s strong emphasis on the poverty of the people inhabiting Catfish Row, South Carolina, lending timelessness to the script. The dice shooters, inability to spend a lot of money for a proper funeral and burial, Bess’ prostitution and drug problems are all part of this kind of unrelenting poverty which is not much improved in 2011 in large sections of urban and small town America. The people’s struggle with poverty and with nature (including a hurricane within the play) universalizes this Porgy and Bess and shows how the struggle to maintain dignity and cohesiveness in the face of adversity, violence and loss.  We are never left to feel this is a fantastic, unreal place because the staging includes domestic and work imagery (washing, fishing, carting goods), rooting the scene in reality.

The individual performances by Audra McDonald (Bess), Norm Lewis (Porgy), David Alan Grier (Sporting Life) and Phillip Boykin (Crown) are fantastic. These terrific singer/actors have lots of chemistry with each other, there is an electricity that radiates through many of their scenes and dialogues. Norm Lewis as Porgy completely inhabits his role as the crippled, good-hearted, poor African American man with a deep heart and clear sense of right and wrong. He is a majestic Porgy, one I will not forget for a long time. His performance alone compels me to want to come this production for a second time during its current run.

I highly commend Diane Paulus, Suzan-Lori Parks and Diedre Murray on their wonderful re-working of the original material.

Carolyn Gregory

BOSTON MODERN ORCHESTRA PROJECT: Ziporyn, Foulds, Child, Shende

Gil Rose, conductor. Sandeep Das, tabla.

May 27, 2011

I had been looking forward to this concert ever since I saw an earlier misprint last September claiming Sangita would be performed in November. The BMOP site finally posted the right date. Ever since I heard the Modern Jazz Quartet's “Music From the Third Stream” album, I've always held my breath, anticipating the performance of the next composition embracing cultural or aesthetic fusion. Would I be treated to a work of great beauty, depth and complexity, or assaulted by a failed attempt that crashed on the shoals, maybe near something deep, but drowning nonetheless?

I've had mixed responses to BMOP in the past. Their concert in 2007 that included Stephen Mackey's “Dreamhouse” and Evan Ziporyn's “Hard Drive” was a terrific, energetic, and inventive, new music merged with hard rocking electronics. But I also saw them at Harvard performing with Cristina Zavalloni, who travels with the Dutch Composer Louis Andriessen. She sang a work I really love, “Passegiata in tram in America e ritorno.” BMOP overwhelmed her, and the pure beauty of her voice was lost to the brass. (An aside: “Passegiata” is itself a work that has elements of fusion, combining Andriessen's normal material with smatterings of renaissance melodies.) I sometimes wish that BMOP would find wider dynamic range. Maybe that's why I go to see the Jack Quartet before I go to see the BSO. I think of Indian music as personal, improvised, intimate, and internally responsive. Also reflective, lugubrious, and ecstatic. All this can be conveyed on only one, two, or three instruments. That's another part of the equation.

There was a warning in the program notes: “. . . the listener should bear in mind that this music isn't intended to sound like traditional Indian music.”  I'd prepared myself by listening to Ravi Shanker classical ragas, George Harrison’s “Within You and Without You,” and Christine Southworth's “Heavy Metal.” (Okay, not exactly Indian, but I was getting warmed up.) That wasn't really the right preparation. With the exception of the Ziporyn piece, sonically and structurally the works were, in many ways, a very Western group of pieces, more influenced by Indian stories, myths, and philosophy than by what we normally think of as Indian music.

The first piece, “Naimittika Pralaya,” by Vineet Shende, is a tone poem, embracing the big Indian ideas: existence and non-existence, destruction and rebirth. There is an interestingly prepared piano, as well as some retuning in some of the strings, which, when combined with use of equal-tempered and naturally-tempered scales, produces a compelling microtonal environment. From the opening we hear wonderful melodies rising to the surface out of a kind of complex stew of textured, complex dissonances. Shende moves then to more melodic portions and almost Bartok-like melodies, passing through big, blocky chord shifts and long passages of strings doubled at octaves, wonderful sliding, and rising melodies. He uses techniques of playing near the bridge, with many leisurely sostenuto sections over a pizzicato walking bass. Late in the piece, we do hear sections that sound sitar-like, or even Electric Light Orchestra-like. There are many effective passages that evoke the sound of crying. If only the world of new music were orderly like a Mozart symphony! Shende describes much of the melodic material as coming from specific ragas. It would be good to hear this again, and I think that's a sign of how compelling the music was. BMOP was excellent here, well-balanced, and delivered this complex piece quite elegantly.

Next up was Evan Ziporyn's piece, “Mumbai.” It seems like he's just about everywhere this spring. He was involved in MIT's 150-birthday concert (which included an embarrassing piece blending the story-telling of Noam Chomsky with the playing of the Kronos Quartet.) The title is meant to invoke of the horrible terrorist incident of 2008. “Mumbai” features the extraordinary tabla playing of Sandeep Das, a member of the Silk Road Ensemble. Perhaps evoking Ziporyn’s love of Gamelan, this piece opens with a group of Tibetan singing bowls, which sit on little cushions, and are played by moving a stick to get them to resonate. (Head over to YouTube and search for “Weaving tones on Tibetan Singing Bowls” to see the many techniques that can be used with them.) The bowls produce a huge number of overtones. But they are … um … Tibetan. No matter. I love Gamelan. The hushed richness of the bells yields to percussion. The bells are struck. The strings form a kind of drone, and then the tabla enters after a few minutes. Ziporyn has the tabla alternating between being a solo instrument and accompanying percussion in a fluid manner. As always, the spirit of minimalism influences Ziporyn's work and there is a long section built around what is first a rapid 5-note figure, and then a pair of 5-note, 7-note figures, accompanied by the tabla. Sandeep tried to make eye contact with the other members of the orchestra, but they were totally immersed in their scores. The section then transitions to a long and aimless-feeling part that feels like it was driving to a cadence. Near the end comes a harmonious slow section, carried by slow-moving strings, with melodies that seem to emerge out of nowhere. Tabla accompanies here, but rather than seeming Indian, it feels like a section from the late Romantic era. Finally, a recapitulation with slowly-building cross rhythms, accelerates to the end. Ziporyn really knows how to use a star like Sandeep, perhaps because of his rock-and-roll or jazz influences. Not always out front, but with opportunities to be. I like very much that I forgot about the orchestra and conductor during this piece, almost to the point that it seemed like a self-directed work. Evan sure knows his way around the percussion world!

I am not fond of modern “art songs,” with their excess of vibrato or love of dissonant music slavishly tied to the text of Wallace Steven's poems. I only toss this in to say there are a number of Peter Child's art songs that I haven't enjoyed much. But there were many sections of “Shanti” that seem uniquely interesting, perhaps because of the way he chose to build the underlying scales, and because of the way he didn't shy away from chords generated even when they were sitting at the edge of cheesiness. The scales were, according to Childs, adapted from the Melakarta, a 17th century Indian scale-generating system. He used more traditional Western techniques (inversion, retrogression) to build the piece.

Each of the eight movements claims to invoke a different aesthetic emotion. The first movement was exciting, pitting a string melody that was descending with a big, bright brass polytonally-related arpeggio. The effect was powerful and simultaneously nightmarish. The second movement was a cousin of the second movement of Mozart's 40th, with long suspended strings in a perpetually descending line. Other sections sounded almost Russian, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf perhaps, or his Lieutenant Kije Suite with big tonal cadences. Another movement was heraldic and military-sounding. Still another sounded composed for Hollywood, with Disney-cartoon-like chords. This is a long work and moved towards a quiet peaceful conclusion, with chords Grieg would have loved (except for the dissonant transitions), harp-like arpeggios and finally a delicate finish with xylophones and sustained horns. I lost track of what movement I was listening to. BMOP really nailed this piece. When the brass has an opportunity to show off, they really can.

By the time the rarely-performed piece by John Foulds was introduced, everyone, including the orchestra, was getting tired. The connection to India felt tenuous. (Foulds died in Calcutta of Cholera, which give him cred.)  There are three movements, Action, Bliss, and Will. I found the first movement to be big, bold, and boring. The second movement features a “wordless” women's chorus. That, unfortunately, reminded me of one of the settings on my multi-talented Yamaha keyboard. The last movement was quite a kick, though: kind of noirish, kind of martial, with drums and crashes. There was even a little sax interlude. You could almost imagine a serious-sounding narrator for the piece, as part of a movie. But as I said, it was getting late. Maybe it was a kind of New Music 1812 Overture. India?

So just how Indian was this concert?  Not counting Sandeep Das, it was far less Indian than Petel's Market in Waltham. But maybe that didn't matter. Ziporyn and his colleagues brings Gamelan into some very engaging works, without the listener feeling that it's grafted onto the piece. I don't think this happened as much with the Indian themes in this music. Instead, Gil Rose and BMOP delivered an interesting and unusual set of pieces, not easily categorized into “European Modernism” or “post-minimalism,” or “third stream.” When the concert ended, I felt my mind shouting out, “Wait, I'm just starting to figure out what's going on here. When can I get the CD?”

Matt Temple

The Chameleon Ensemble: Beethoven, Bermel, Bloch, and Barber

Deborah Boldin, flute; Vivian Chang-Freiheit, piano; Nancy Dimock, oboe; Whitacre Hill, French horn; Joanna Kurkowicz, violin; William Manley, percussion; Kelli O'Connor, clarinet; Margaret Phillips, bassoon; Rafael Popper-Keizer, cello; Sergey Schepkin, piano; Katherine Winterstein, violin; Scott Woolweaver, viola.

May 22, 2011

The Chameleon Ensemble’s idea to start the concert with a performance of Samuel Barber's Summer Music was a canny one. First, it is a shiny exuberant piece that highlights each instrument in the woodwind quintet: the flute, oboe, bassoon, clarinet, and the horn. It got the audience in a highly receptive mood from the start. Plus Barber’s one-movement piece harkens to the coming summer with languid sequences alternating with lively motoric parts, much like a summer Sunday’s day on the Charles River. And if some of the enthusiasm champed at the close confines of the Goethe Institute (most notably the horn), the audience received the piece warmly.

Derek Bermel’s oddly titled Tied Shifts came as a pleasant surprise. The opening violin ostinato was puzzling, but quickly gave way to a spirited reading of a percussive and highly inventive piece. In both the presto and the allegro molto movements, a dizzying array of ethnic strains engaged the listeners. These quasi-Bulgarian themes are as entrancing as a walk through an avenue of Moroccan spice stalls. There is no telling what new musical aroma is going to waft past you next. Hearing such exciting music for the first time is very much like making love to a new person in your life. It's not only charming but thrilling, and the appreciation deepens with age; however, the shock of the new that stays with you is never to be repeated.

Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 4 is like an old friend who shows up unexpectedly at your doorstep. You're surprised to see her, but soon the old stories and reminiscences ensue with warmth and nostalgia. There is no pussyfooting around, the piece just walks right in and asserts itself. There is no sentimentalizing or hollow laughter here. Brilliantly handled by Joanna Kurkowicz on violin and Sergey Schepkin on piano, this sonata by Beethoven felt quirky, dark, and sometimes difficult – most notably in the first and third movements. The andante had its humorous moments, particularly in the whimsical two-tone dialogue so well-articulated by the players. There was a high tempo variance in the final movement, which stood in sharp relief like a high contrast photograph. The lead melody was played tightly and with great conviction, and the coda served up a delicious dish of demisemiquavers.

The ensemble then played Ernst Bloch’s justly famous Piano Quintet No. 1. It is a piece with one-half its personality in the 19th century and the other half in the experimental 1920s, when it was written. Many people read too deeply into this piece, attributing to Bloch some sort of prescient knowledge of the pain of World War II. As performed by an ensemble like the Chameleons, it was simultaneously an entertaining and profound exploration of Bloch’s sense of modernism. Like Bartok, he felt the need to respect the past and imbued the work with strains of chromatic lyricism, such as in the second movement. But in III, there is an intense almost dancelike opening melody, which dies down to reveal discrete somatic cells of atonality. Here we have a true 1920s feel of chamber music excitement, as the piece took off like a highly maneuverable triplane looping around in an air show, descending finally into a lyrical, almost lazy mood.

What a great way to end the concert. And the season.

Peter Bates

HANDEL AND HAYDN SOCIETY: Requiem by Wolfgang Mozart, conducted by Harry Christophers.

May 1, 2011

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his final glorious Requiem, anticipating his own death in 1791. Myths and mysteries still swirl around this masterpiece, but I think it's more important to discuss the performance. For more information about the myths and mysteries, see this Wikipedia entry.

The Handel and Haydn Society presented Mozart's Requiem as the centerpiece of one of their remaining concerts in its one hundred and ninety sixth season. Attendance was very high for this widely anticipated concert, which included two lesser compositions by Mozart and an early accompanying composition by George Frideric Handel. The motet, "Ave verum corpus", opened the concert with tonal shifts from major to minor, hinting at the Requiem's similar solemnity. Insistent swelling rise of the chorus was held very nicely by the sopranos, in particular. The motet contributed a lovely sustained and short musical theme and movement.

Next on the program was Mozart's aria, "Per questa bella mano", sung by the fabulous American bass-baritone, Eric Owens, in duet with Handel and Haydn's own Rob Nairn, playing double bass obbligato. This was a love song linking heaven and earth. Double bass enunciated its low, throbbing range, echoed by the small orchestral ensemble. Eric Owens is a major singer and force of nature with previous operatic roles at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. His voice is deeply emotional with resonance and unusual flexibility. His middle and upper range soared, elegantly supported by Mr. Nairn's double bass. Fine control was shown in all of this performance.

Handel's early composition, "Dixit Dominus", included eight soloists, heavily weighted for sopranos and mezzo-soprano voices. A dizzying vault into the soaring orchestra included fine movement between choral sections. An early trumpet rose in the turbulence. Occasional short solo parts were introjected with great volume, passion and modulation. Soprano soloist, Elizabeth Watts, sang with beautiful upper register tones that were vibrant, airy and strong, adding a bird-like tremulo. The chorus generally sang with good dynamic shift between pianissimo and crescendo, sounding sometimes like an ocean of angels. Eric Owens once again triumphed with his strong bass-baritone command. Throughout this fine early work, a musical tapestry wove around bright points of color, pizzicato ornamentation lending gold and red threads. The duo of sopranos written around the line of text, "He shall drink of the brook in the way", was poignant, respectful, a lovely articulation. The two sang in fine complement to each other. The "Gloria patri" movement at the end showed a high command of very complex rhythmic variations, almost a call and response, traded richly by the choral sections.

This performance was a high point of the concert for me. I felt as if I was a passenger on the ship of this glorious music, tossed on the sea of turbulence, eternal for all time.

Mozart's masterwork, the Requiem, began with "The trumpet will send its wondrous sound/throughout earth's sepulchres" slowly, solemnly and fatalistically bringing the orchestra to bloom. Suddenly, the music was struck by a bolt of dark lightning and foreboding. Refined choral work was joined by soloist, Elizabeth Watts; cataclysms within the chorus moved the whole to a full sound. The Kyrie eleison movement built in a point and counterpoint, fugal, shocked crescendo which was finely detailed and disciplined. What followed was an almost operatic build-up. Once again, Eric Owens brought his striking low range voice into contrast with tenor, Andrew Kelly. Similarly, the soprano and mezzo soloists lent poignancy and nobility to the musical line, "What shall a wretch like me say?" There followed a fine quartet of soloists who blended with balance, suggested the emotions of guilt and compassion, illuminating the composer's sad pain and acceptance of his own mortality. Submission mixed with fear of the fires at world's end and portents moved forth through funereal solemnity. One of the finest sections of the Requiem followed -- "Lacrimosa" -- and it was sung with high tragedy and drama, a hinged door between the abyss and renunciation. The offertorium suggested liberation from the pit, sung with zeal. A waterfall of cresting emotion, sweet soprano, offering of sacrifice and praise to God followed. Ascent of the chorus toward the light as promised to Abraham and his descendants arose with rhythmic balance, glory of tone that lit up the whole hall. At the end, we were rewarded with a garden of vocal flowers of the highest order, soloists all drawing from deep within their hearts and spirits for this concert which was consistently excellent. Watchwords for the afternoon at every turn were passion, refinement, other worldliness, dignity and the acceptance of God's mercy in a too short mortal life.

Carolyn Gregory

The Chameleon Ensemble: Schubert, Kurtag, Ligeti, Bartok, and Schumann

Deborah Boldin, flute; Vivian Chang-Freiheit, piano; Anthony D'Amico, double bass; Nancy Dimock, oboe; Gary Gorczyca, clarinet; Whitacre Hill, French horn; Elizabeth Keusch, soprano; Joel Pitchon, violin; Margaret Phillips, bassoon; Rafael Popper-Keizer, cello; Nicholas Tolle, cimbalom; Scott Woolweaver, viola

March 27, 2011

The poetic title of this Chameleon Ensemble’s concert was "upon the wind your music floats." The music did appear to float in many cases and not just on the land: it swam through the tumultuous water and flapped its wings across pointy mountain tops. The first piece by Schubert, his longest lied "The Shepherd on the Rock" boasted a marvelous opening on clarinet, gently played by Gary Gorczyca with well-controlled dynamics. Then there were those deftly executed dialogues between soprano Elizabeth Keusch and Mr. Gorczyca’s on clarinet. Ms. Keusch also negotiated the sudden pitch leaps and pronounced vibrato quite well. Problems arose, however, when she sang some forte sequences: she simply sang them too loud, particularly for the confined space of the Goethe Institute. Despite this, the piece was generally pleasant and featured an astounding virtuoso ending on clarinet.

Bela Bartok’s Rhapsody No. 1, normally played on the violin and piano, was performed this evening in its violin and cello version. Vivian Chang-Freiheit on piano and Rafael Popper-Keiser on cello nobly attempted to scale the heights of this craggy work. In particular, the two musicians interpreted the quirky first theme more percussively than I've heard before, with somewhat less total color variance. However, the melodic second theme (parts of which remind me of Aaron Copland’s famous Shaker theme from Appalachian Spring) was smooth and well stated.

The centerpiece of the evening was Gyorgy Kurtag's Scenes from a Novel. The work was so well played, with its occasional arch humor well conveyed and its poignancy far beyond reproach, that I instantly wanted to go out and buy a copy. For example the first piece was a forlornly accompanied on Joel Pitchon's angular violin. The second featured Anthony D'Amico's double bass conspiring with the violin and Nicholas Tolle's slightly wacky cimbalom, which is a percussive xylophone-like instrument. Together they matched wits with sharply singing soprano Elizabeth Keusch. This time her voice did not overreach and even seemed eerily appropriate for this deep and affecting work. All 15 small "scenes" are actually poems by Rimma Dalos, who never specified what the novel was nor how it ended.

Composer Gyorgy Ligeti composed Six Bagatelles early in his career but the work shows his impish side. For some reason he begins it with a piccolo (skillfully played by Deborah Bolden), and then that instrument never appears again. Deborah goes on to play the flute instead in this wind quintet. The work is filled with striking devices like comic accelerando, oddly assembled notes, breathtaking octave leaps and a general raucous carnival mood. There is no thematic progression, particularly in the Presto where a sprightly ostinato gently mocks the whole idea of development. Despite the lack of a piccolo, Deborah spun out a series of high notes on the flute in the spirited finale.

The final piece, the 19th century Piano Quartet in E flat major by Robert Schumann, has an exuberant opening featuring Chang-Freiheit's impressive piano virtuosity and vast flowing themes. The ensemble played the famous scalar theme at the opening of the vivace with fury and shades of romantic heroism. This one theme runs through the entire movement but it is so distinctive, so hurried, that makes a lasting impression. I have always found the andante a bit sentimental, no matter who plays it, so I am not qualified to comment on this rendition. The triumphant major key of the ending almost obscures the sad knowledge of the ending of Schumann's life. From Beethoven he even learned how to construct a whimsical fake-out ending before the traditional coda. This was truly another memorable evening with the Chameleon Ensemble.

Peter Bates

AMERICAN REPERTORY THEATER: Death and the Powers: the Robots' Opera by Tod Machover. Libretto by Robert Pinsky.

March 20, 2011

Tod Machover of the MIT Media Lab's latest opera is a bold project with large philosophical themes − animal versus spiritual, fantasy versus business development, matter versus time. Perhaps the weightiness of the themes creates  a top heavy quality to the short, ninety minute opera and this is where its difficulty lies.

The character Simon Powers is an extraordinarily rich, international entrepreneur whose body is failing. He has decided to give his body to the "System", a room-sized computer represented by moving walls covered with light panels. Through this means, he will continue to exist as intellectual energy sans body. He does not want to lose the power "to sign checks" or to make decisions. His wife and daughter are greatly upset by his choice, though he follows through with it.

The technical and stage production are high level. Six robots are choreographed to respond to human commands. Moving panels of light represent the "System" into which Simon Powell's body enters. A huge and intricate chandelier doubles as a musical instrument and erotic device. Simon Powers' voice and images from his past life flicker via videos on the walls and it is a consistently strong device.  Lead singer, James Maddalena, famous for his prior role in John Adams' Nixon in China, sings with majesty and modulation. His stage presence is commanding and riveting. Similarly, Powers' daughter, Miranda (Sara Heaton), really draws emotion into her performance and has a voice with amazing range and timbre. The other singers are all good, as well.

Poet Robert Pinsky's libretto is well written, sometimes jazzy, topical and humorous. It partners well with the score and helps move the opera forward.  As a libretto, it was pretty good poetry.

What does not work so well is the story line which is buried beneath too much abstraction to be convincing. Simon Powers' real world position is never articulated though we are led to believe his departure from the world "of meat" into the "System" may lead to world chaos. Clearly, Simon Powers needs to be "fleshed out" to carry this kind of power in an opera. Without this, all the pyrotechnics and wonderful singing represent a beautiful surface, only. One feels like the ghost of the Wizard of Oz is pulling the levers and manipulating the robots.

Despite this criticism, I enjoyed the ninety minute opera for its fine music, acting and use of a small stage. If developed, this could turn into a powerhouse, and I hope that this happens.

Carolyn Gregory

The Radius Ensemble: Hovhaness, Tower, Higdon, and Dvořák

Jennifer Montbach, oboe; Eran Egozy, clarinet, Jae Young Cosmos Lee, violin; Miriam Boklosky, cello; Sarah Bob, piano

March 5, 2011

Like the Chameleon Ensemble, the Radius Ensemble is committed to bringing both new and twentieth century music to its audience, while slipping in the occasional romantic or classical piece. Last weekend’s performance succeeded in presenting mostly unknown works to the Cambridge audience. The Ensemble also played them well.

The Divertimento (1949) by Alan Hovhaness is a bit of a blend of modern and old. It opens like a renaissance piece, full of lovely four-square melody and bulging lyricism. Later movements involve a heady sampling of canonic sections and sparkling imitation. But just when you’ve settled into 1582, Hovhaness throws in a sudden dancelike melody of Armenian extraction, played most excellently by Eran Ogozy (clarinet) and Elah Grandel (bassoon) and Jennifer Montbach (oboe). Just as quickly, it ends. It backtracks to the past, pleasant and accommodating as an old sofa. The Fugue (Finale) is an impressive technical achievement, well performed and sporting a charming use of dynamics.

Joan Tower may be a neo-romantic composer, but her Amazon does not have the easy accessibility and smooth virtuosity of her later concertos. It begins wistfully, then plunges into a dissonance that flirts only once in a while with trim resolution. It constantly searches for a center, and almost finds it with the entrance of the piano. Sarah Bob then angrily strikes the instrument producing drama and shrill yelps, sometimes plucking its strings from within. This is a cranky quirky piece. Aided by cellist Miriam Bolkosky (alas, without her fulsome hairdo) and violinist Jae Young Cosmos Lee, Amazon quickly becomes frenetic and internally combative, like a committee of dadaists debating their next shocking event. The woodwinds are motoric, the piano propulsive. I’m looking forward to a recap via the group’s generous podcast of the concert in a few weeks.

Like her recent Concerto for Orchestra, Jennifer Higdon’s rapid❖fire is full of energy and inventive force. Played on a single flute by Sarah Brady, it quickly turns into a musical catalog of all a flute can do, every sound it can make, from sensuous trill to furtive glissando. Its spitting tones and fugitive ostinatos offer a piece that’s continually in conflict with itself. Brady should be lauded for her amazing breath control throughout this challenging material. The mood may be angry and the music chock-full of coarsely shaded dynamics, but rapid❖fire certainly gets your attention.

What can one say about Antonín Dvořák’s String Quintet No. 2? Almost immediately, it starts with its jaunty rhythms. Primarily a sunny piece, it’s a nice alternate pairing with rapid❖fire. Who can shy away from the gentle pizzicato of the bass in II, almost like a heartbeat? Who can close their ears to the famous scherzo in III, with its seductive sforzandos? And how about the ascending effusive melody in V, or the folk dance melody, or that long teasing coda? Dvorak loved his repeats and may be one of the last composers to use them so plenteously. To their credit, the Radius Ensemble reinstated the Intermezzo, long missing from most recordings and performances.

Peter Bates

BOSTON EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL: Piano music of Mozart

Kristian Bezuidenhout, fortepiano

February 25, 2011

South African fortepianist, Kristian Bezuidenhout is known as the "prince of the fortepiano" (The Times), Mr. Bezuidenhout gained international recognition at age 21 after winning major prizes in the Bruges Fortepiano Competition. (The fortepiano for this concert was a spectacularly beautiful 1998 instrument, patterned after those by Anton Walter, circa 1785-1795.)

From the first few runs and chords of the Sonata in F major, K332, the audience was transported immediately to Mozart's eighteenth century world of the minuet, hunt, and small opera stage. Mr. Bezuidenhout's playing summoned bell-like tones in the allegro movement, shifting to a steady, walking style in the adagio with particular clarity in the treble range. The allegro movement began with versatility and conjured a world of bird-song. Precision, passion and rigor continued throughout.

The Variations in F major followed on the program. The set of eight variations is Mozart's last composition for solo piano and they contain a range of dance styles with varying emotions, including a significant shift to the minor key. Mr. Bezuidenhout managed the mood and dance shifts here with elegance.

The Fantasie in C minor K 396 showcased both the improvised fantasia and full expressive capabilities of the fortepiano. The piece began with tentativeness, a lot of sorrow, chromatic melody and silence. The treble range playing was gorgeous as if music could be carved out of stone, filigree added. At one point, the light/dark contrast and introspection reminded me of Beethoven's later work, the "Moonlight Sonata."

The concert concluded with the Sonata in B flat major. The allegro's familiar cheerful melody included fine pacing. The melody like a child's song expanded and developed with a full heart. The andante was profound and emotional, showing a combination of acceptance and offering a broad canvas for a piano sonata. The allegretto grazioso followed with jubilant dancing that included fluidity, versatility, and a round sense of completion.

The concert was a triumph. Bezuidenhout included an encore of Mozart's "Andante cantabile" from the Sonata in C major, K. 330. It managed to swirl beauty and regret together, introducing dark threads of lament, quiet acknowledgment and reflection. What a full banquet of music for a winter's night.

Carolyn Gregory

The Boston Symphony: Stravinsky and Bartók

Michelle DeYoung, Albert Dohmen, Russell Thomas, et al. Conducted by James Levine

January 7, 2011

It was an ambitious undertaking for Boston Symphony’s programmers, to present two of the 20th century’s greatest one-act operas back to back: Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle. It’s not a common pairing, like Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. and Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana. They have little in common, these twentieth century operas. Stravinsky’s is filled with wildly varied vocal textures: a complete male chorus, a mezzo-soprano, bass, tenor, and bass- baritone. Bartók boasts only the bass-baritone and the mezzo-soprano. Stravinsky dictated that that players perform like statues, which often works in a concert opera performance. Except the Boston Symphony performers couldn’t resist acting, particularly Michelle DeYoung as Jocasta, Oedipus’ wife/mother. In her famous aria “Nonne erubeskite, reges, clamare,” she urges the kings to stop quarrelling at a time of plague, and peers in the distance at imaginary kings, using emotive gesticulations and expressive facial features. This opera-oratorio marks the beginning of Stravinsky’s neo-classical phase, that cluster of extreme measures he took to re institute arpeggiated triads, diminished 7th chords, and scads of formal recitatives. As performed by the Boston Symphony, the piece would have been enough for an entire evening by itself (provided patrons didn’t feel cheated by its length). At a little more than an hour, it certainly didn’t drag. Quite the contrary, the orchestra and chorus keep the pace moving a so briskly that it was hard to absorb the impacts of the various calamities as they occurred. As Oedipus, Russell Thomas came off as prideful and confused at the same time, awed by his power and frightened by it at the same time. Oedipus Rex is a double chocolate ice cream of an opera, filled with luscious music and bittersweet crunchy dynamics.

On the other hand, Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle is a smaller desert to consume, but perhaps a more nutritious one. As Judith opening the seven dreadful doors, DeYoung recoils in horror as few others have in a concert opera performance. (Usually it takes stage roses dripping with red food dye to get other mezzos worked up to such fevered pitches.) Her varying rhythms and bursting triads so vividly compete with Albert Dohmen’s stern, four-square pentatonics that the two seem fatefully unmatched from the beginning. The opera is about nothing less than the plight of women welded to men of power, a theme far more powerful than Stravinsky’s classical portrayal of regal guilt. The music is dissonant at key points of revelation, then steadily foreboding (and downright creepy) at others. Bartók failed to win a prize for it in 1911 and had to wait six years for it to be produced. Only when the Budapest Opera realized that the Wooden Prince was a hit did it agree to pair the two works. The audience loved it.

And therein lies the key to an ideal pairing. Look to the past. Simply reproduce that 1917 evening’s bill. A Bartók-only performance his The Wooden Prince ballet and Bluebeard’s Castle. Consign Stravinksy’s opera-oratorio to the archives, to be trotted out at the anniversaries of his birth or death or other such celebrations. (He never liked opera anyway.) Produce a twentieth century opera that still throbs with life, death, and blood after a century.

Peter Bates

BOSTON EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL: Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell.

Yulia Van Doren, Teresa Wakim, Douglas Williams, Laura Pudwell, and José Lemos. Musical direction by Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs.

November 28, 2010

This production of Dido and Aeneas was considerably longer than Purcell's original, yet it was uniformly successful. Framed by a lovely tapestry, it began with an elegant bow from a dancer toward the musicians, followed by a scene flooded with a set of gorgeous period costumes. A young man with a lyre was welcomed by the entourage, and the theme, "Music be the food of love", was stated. There was a wonderful dance involving two principal Baroque dancers who were as light as air and doll-like. Fine instrumental work followed which included Vivaldi-like passion, followed by the entrance of a distraught queen. The queen's sister, Belinda, and the company tried to draw Dido from her melancholy without much success. Laura Pudwell's singing as Dido had some lovely lower register work though there was some inflexibility at times. Prince Aeneas nonetheless pledged his love soon through some really gorgeous singing by Douglas Williams and Dido was placated when presented with a beautiful gift necklace. Ensemble dancing and singing were consistently fine. The second act presented the Sorceress with consort witches and a host of night demons dressed like animated autumn leaves. In this production, the Sorceress was a giant, black hoop-skirted drag queen who really ate up the scenery! He sang well, the consort witches were a wonderful noisy duo and the staging was effectively autumnal, charged and sometimes humorous. Though I felt this act was engaging, I was a little unsure about the humor since its purpose was to show how evil spirits plotted to ruin the bond between Dido and Aeneas and to turn things topsy turvy politically.

Act III began with young people engaged in a hunt in the woods, including some lovely lute and guitar work, the prevention of Aeneas' death (once he magically became a stag), and additional lovely singing by Douglas Williams as Aeneas. In the next scene, Aeneas let Dido know he must part company with her as deemed by the gods, Jupiter and Mercury.

At this point, Ms. Pudwell's singing was gorgeous, deeply emotional, tragic. There was a high pitch to the dramatic tension that built upon excellent singing, acting and instrumental work, leading to Dido's death following her lament, "Remember me."  The opera concluded with the falsetto refrain, "How blessed is the archer".  

I heartily commend musical directors Paul O'Dette and Stephen Stubbs for their reinterpretation of the surviving fragments of Purcell's score. According to Stubbs, the opera survives only as a "noble torso, like the Venus de Milo." O'Dette and Stubbs needed to fill in the opera with late 17th century courtly odes and dances to complete the opera for a contemporary audience. Though occasionally one dance or scene might have benefitted from a little editing, the opera did sustain its high drama and joie de vivre. The chamber ensemble played with dignity, framing the vocal soloists and vocal ensemble at every turn.

Similarly, the stage direction, costume direction and choreography were top notch. Though this modified version of the original was now double Purcell's original in length, the stage direction struck a nice balance between ensemble work, dances, and soloists. With a lot of activity on stage, there was never a sense of claustrophobia. In particular, the dancing of Caroline Copeland and Carlos Fittante was truly magical.

Carolyn Gregory

The Tokyo String Quartet: Mozart, Schubert, Barber

Presented by The Celebrity Series.

November 19, 2010

The justly famous Tokyo String Quartet performed a pleasant concert this weekend, consisting of two warhorses, and one near-warhorse. I don't mean to use the term disparagingly, for these pieces make excellent listening and one even has intriguing complexities. However, they are indicative of a trend I'm seeing these days: choice of program, as well as performance. More on that later.

First, the performances. Mozart's String Quartet No. 21 was competently played. The Stradivarius instruments of all four players had fine tone and the repeated sections were varied sufficiently to keep the piece interesting. The short and sweet Adagio was a musical truffle filled with cream and the minuet was sprightly as a dancing muledeer. The Allegretto had passages of tasty intricacy and there were few if any mistakes made. It amused me, for one, but without moving me.

It was also nice hearing Schubert's famous Cello Quintet, and fun watching closely to see how the parts differ for each cello. Lynn Harrell did a splendid job with his 1720 Montagnana, particularly in the pizzacato dialog with the first violin in II. The Scherzo was appropriately rollicking, reminding me of a whirling folk dance, only to dip back into the lyrical first theme from I. It was the centerpiece of the evening and justly so.

Yet I was so mystified by Samuel Barber’s String Quartet. Not its inclusion, which is becoming more common these days, but its total inclusion. So many have heard the famous adagio that it’s a mystery why an ensemble like the Tokyo String Quartet would bother with the rest of it. The entire work is an old chestnut or perhaps something less nutty--a crumbly "everything" bagel, with strawberry cream cheese in the center. I don't know whose idea it was to include it yet again, and it doesn't really matter. Beyond its eight famous minutes, it just doesn't have that many profound or even poignant ideas. The rest of it is (forgive me for this oh posterity) just strung together. It was well played of course, but does a colorful painting of a crag transform it into a castle?

And therein is the central problem with this concert. Not the playing, which was good but not extraordinary, but the programming itself. Rather than challenge the audience with one modern piece by Bela Bartok or Krzysztof Penderecki, the event gave the audience something safe, something familiar. This is recession programming, fueled by fears of alienating a graying classical audience. Such programming can be expected of the Boston Pops, but not by cutting edge exponents of classical repertory.

Peter Bates

CHAMELEON ARTS ENSEMBLE: Music of Beethoven, Roslavets, Ives, Tower, and Bartok

Shelagh Abate, French horn; Deborah Boldin, flute; Vivian Chang-Freiheit, piano; Gloria Chien, piano; Gary Gorczyca, clarinet; Joanna Kurkowicz, violin; Margaret Phillips, bassoon; Rafael Popper-Keizer, cello; Scott Woolweaver, viola.

October 17, 2010

The Chameleon Arts Ensemble began its 12^th season with a challenging roster of pieces. Did they tackle them to the ground and hoist them to the sky? Read on.

Don’t be misled by Charles Ives’ Piano Trio, which starts so leisurely. Violinist Joanna Kurkowicz, cellist Rafael Popper-Keizer, and pianist Gloria Chien took it for a walk in the bright air, where it breathed deeply, misbehaved a few times, and ran down sunburst New England hills. Ultimately, it gave the audience a robust taste of the idiosyncratic Ives. At times, the violin was the orator, and the cello and piano the participating congregation. There were forceful, almost angry tones in I, but they gave way to the good-hearted whimsy of II. The piece is an often eccentric rendition of folk and religious music, all with slightly skewed melodies, tempos, or both. There was no telling what deviltry they’d conjure up next. The performers managed to rein in the exuberance in III, turning the arch rendition of “Rock of Ages” into a calmer, more dignified affair. This final--and longest--movement featured an intriguing canon in the strings and strains of late Romantic themes and development. "Rock of Ages" turned into a contemplative code, as if Ives is performing contrition at having mocked it in II. Well handed, Kurkowicz, Popper-Keizer, and Chien!

The Beethoven Cello Sonata, Opus 102, No. 1, also started slowly and subtly in the first half of I, but soon erupted into highly accented figures so typical of Beethoven. Cellist Popper-Keizer and pianist Vivian Chang-Freiheit chose to play the first part of this movement with passion intact but storms subdued, perhaps leaving the pyrotechnics to the second half. And erupt they did, ending I with tight angular control. In II, all stops were loosed, even as the opening adagio pondered, then broke under the spell of a vigorous folk tune, complete with humorous dialogue between the two instruments. The sudden wry stops in the allegro vivace are “precious tidbits,” as my grandfather used to call them. Compared to the composer’s subsequent string quartets, there’s not quite enough “Sturm” in this piece; however by last bar’s end, there was more than enough “Drang.”

Nikolai Roslavets, dubbed “the mystery man of Soviet music” and “the Russian Schoenberg,” was hot in the 20’s period of Russian Futurism and Constructivism, only to be purged and silenced for fifty years after that. This performance of his First Viola Sonata began as a late Romantic piece, perambulated in atonal clusters, then ratcheted up the intensity, particularly while both instruments played in tight dialog with each other. Violist Scott Woolweaver and pianist Vivian Chang-Freiheit admirably navigated this particular piece, as if they’d been playing it for years. Later, the piece approached not Schoenbergian, but Alban Bergian levels of lyricism, with its consistent themes of striving upward, struggle, and brief diversions of rest. The coda left the audience with presentments of an onrushing tide, followed by four barbed chords. “It encouraged me to get the music for the Second Viola Sonata,” said Woolweaver after the concert.

The lightest piece of the evening is by the evanescent Joan Tower, that Grammy-winning contemporary American composer from whom tunes and themes bubble like sparkling seltzer. A Gift is a relatively recent work and is based on a subtle insertion of Rogers and Hart’s tune from Babes In Arms, “My Funny Valentine.” In form it is a quintet for piano and winds, but in mood it is more of a serenade, like those in Mozart’s time, penned for specified occasions. Although fragments from this work sound “jazzy,” (particularly Gary Gorczyca’s florid clarinet solo), don’t expect Chet Baker-like variations. However, there were frenetic and exuberant displays of virtuosity from performers like Deborah Boldin (flute) and Shelagh Abate (French horn). There are many programmatic effects, like swirling and stabbing figures to suggest wild dancing, although the rhythm was not exactly dancelike. I wish Margaret Phillips’ bassoon had a more pronounced part, but Ms. Tower, who’s written a clarinet concerto, seems more comfortable with that instrument. Alas, I shouldn’t expect so much. A Gift was a tasty bonbon, attractively wrapped.

Bartok’s Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano is an entirely different beast, however. In fact, it was the evening’s centerpiece. Expertly played by Ms. Kurkowicz and pianist Chien, how could it not be? Musically, it was the most sophisticated and memorable work on the program. It began molto moderato, which doesn’t begin to explain the sense of mystery and foreboding the deft interplay between violin and piano provided. Most haunting was a five-note figure that reappeared as a leitmotiv throughout. For nine minutes, the performers kept up the tension, then a sly pizzicato erupted into the vigorous Hungarian dance-like sequences of II. Kurkowicz and Chien provided excitement and variety, before dropping into an air of tranquility. The five note theme returned, almost seductively, and the piece ended.

This concert bodes well for the coming season.

Peter Bates