Classical New Jersey Society - Reviews & Opinions

There was a great deal of energy and skill brought to the performances by the various constituent groups of the New Jersey Youth Symphony (NJYS) of music by Grieg, Bozza, Dubois, Handel, Bizet, Sibelius, and Copland. Yet that was not the main reason to have attended the NJYS's 25th anniversary concert. What showed them to be an organization with large and appropriate aspirations was the presence of six world premieres, one each by six well-respected New Jersey composers.

George Walker's Icarus in Orbit was the first of the commissioned works to be heard. It pressed the players of the second-highest-tier Youth Orchestra to expand their abilities. This was a theme which continued all afternoon.

Walker's piece lies between his thorniest writing and his most easily assimilated. Though there are spikey moments, the cello solo by Gregory Grano and the flute solo by Virginia Hicks were lyrical, though challenging.

David Austin's Regressions for Flute Choir proved to be a very attractive work, far from the extremes of fluff or early-Penderecki colorism I expected. Here is a composer who found a middle ground, pushed the kids, and added a work of substance to the ever-growing repertoire for flute choir.

Donald Behm, a composer of many kinds of music, also stayed away from writing icky or condescending stuff for kids. Though Concerto for a Playground uses kid's game tunes, it is cleverly made and required working on ensemble skills for the youngest children on stage, the combined String Training Ensemble and the Junior Strings.

Raymond Wojcik's Jubilee proved to be a whiz-bang piece with meter changes and passages flying along. It was a challenge not only for the kids of the third-highest-tier Philharmonia but for conductor Todd Doan as well. After he stepped on the podium but before he picked up his baton he crossed himself like some athletes. And athletic it was for everyone. Wojcik, perhaps alone among the composers, has subsequently composed a second version of the piece for professionals. But the kids met his challenges. The piece was based on the letters BAB for BArbara Barstow, the artistic director of the whole organization.

Rita Z. Asch's Celebration in Three for the fourth-ranked Sinfonia gave the youngsters some age-appropriate challenges, the most obvious being the chance to deal with *whole-tone scales.

David Sampson's New Providence Overture takes its name from the location of the NJYS in the town of New Providence. It is a piece which featured another of the composer's effective tuba solos played by likely one of the top young tubists in the state, Tom Killian. Sampson's celebratory works are rousing yet never gratuitously populist. The top-tier orchestra in the system was stretched, to be sure, but they handled the piece well.

About this last top orchestra it must be said that their performance of Copland's El Salón Mexico was played with great spirit and idiomatic understanding. The clarinet (Keith Dworkin) and trumpet (David Reinhardt) solos were outstanding, better than many a professional orchestra from Europe which too often lack that innate ability to find the inner life of those ever-so-American solos.

One of the great moments of the afternoon took place as the whole mass of 397 kids was lined up on stage for a group photo. Just to see that many of the state's youth involved in something so productive and ennobling brought a lump to the throat of several folks who were there not as parents but as supporters of the arts.

It must be reported that those responsible for controlling the lighting in the Prudential Hall were a dismal failure. The composers were all sitting along the first tier boxes to audience left. After each premiere, the composer of course stood to be recognized. Rarely did the follow-spot hit the right person, and then the operator resolutely remained on the seated person even when the lit composer was desperately pointing to the correct one standing in the dark. Not only that, but the house lights were brought down to darkness, thereby making it impossible for attendees not near the stage to read their programs. Requests during intermission to remedy this were refused.

Lauda! Chamber Singers, “Amor di Dio, Amor di Tu!” Charles Walker (conductor), featured singers: Deborah Kyle (soprano), Robin Debreceni, Florence E. Moyer (mezzo-sopranos); Peter Jamieson and John Sinclair (tenors); and Bela Debreceni (bass). Crystal Bacon (poet and reader). St. Stephen's Lutheran Church, Woodbury.

Only minutes after being asked to review a concert by Lauda! Chamber Singers there was a sudden realization that I have spent most of the leisure time in my adult life studying only the orchestral repertoire of western music. I had to stop and think about the last time (lo! the only time) I went to a choral music performance. It was thirty-two years ago.

But I know what I like and I think my wife and I are very average concert goers. On that very special Sunday in June (the sixtieth anniversary of the Normandie invasion) Marie and I literally slid into the center of a church pew to listen to what would be for both of us an epiphany. Music for voices enchants the heart, mind, and soul in different ways than does music for strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion, but the passion is the same. We, the average concert goers, went home wanting more.

At the pre-concert lecture, Artistic Director Charles Walker described in a matter-of-fact way what the audience would hear within the next hour and a half. His theme, in the vernacular was: "Poetry and music got married one day and they have lived happily ever after."

Monteverdi and Palestrina, names seldom, if ever, seen on symphonic programs, represented a substantial portion of this event. Two madrigal works, Dolcisissimo uscignolo and Chi so haver felice e lieto il core by Claudio Monteverdi opened the performance, each drawing the audience deeper and deeper into the emotional fray that dominated the program. In Lamento della ninfa, based on poetry by Ottavio Rinuccini (1562-1621), mezzo-soprano Robin Debreceni delivered the part of the Nymph with an ease that brought rapture in sound to St. Stephen's Lutheran Church in Woodbury. All of us were now enchanted by Walker's programming wizardry.

In laudate dominum featured singers Kyle, Moyer, Jamieson, Sinclair, and Bela Debreceni joined voices in yet another Monteverdi work, this one based on Psalm 117. Sung with precision and wonderful textures, it culminated in a rousing doxology.

Finishing the first half, Three Hindu Songs by Lauda! composer-in-residence Michael Hegeman, based on 12th century poetry, rated three exclamation points - a resounding rating - in my notebook. This was a second performance of the Songs which was first done last March with harp accompaniment, but was now supported by a small ensemble of strings.

To perpetuate the marriage motif, Crystal Bacon, an honored New Jersey poet, who is also a college dean at Warren County College, read a variety of works from her own collections that were fitting and proper to this celebration. In Blame It on My Youth, the audience heard references to the New Jersey Shore and other things Jersey. Later in Desire! and in Valentine, the audience was charmed by Ms. Bacon, the winner of the 2003 A. Poulin Prize for new American poetry.
Mr. Walker, in his program supplement, wrote, "An opportunity to compare how two composers from different musical periods treat the same text is always fun." It isn't just fun; it is enlightening entertainment.

The choice Walker used to make the comparison could be considered a difficult hearing, but the impact on the listener was intense. The pieces, one Italian from the 16th century, the other German from the 20th century are translations of Psalm 42 (attributed to King David): "Like as the hart desireth the water brooks, so longeth my soul after thee, O God.” The presentations were both pure in sound and sentiment. Neither were more than about four minutes long, but such music often leaves lasting impressions, because the peacefulness of the Sicut cervus by Palestrina and the turbulence of the Wie der Hirsch by Hugo Distler are both basic human conditions that require our most profound attention.

Two additional works by Distler (1908-1942), a Lutheran church musician, Nimmersatter Liebe (Insatiable Love) and Denk' es, o Seele (Remember, O Soul) based on poetry by Eduard Möricke, are both emotional outpourings of the composer's love, but they are also heart-wrenchingly sad depictions of this man's need to end his own life because of his personal conflict with the Nazi government. Ironically, he gassed himself in his own oven in a private, self-inflicted holocaust.

The spatial juxtaposition of poetry and music on this program was quite unusual and bordered on perfection. Ms. Bacon's poems, few with more than 100 words, were gathered-in as if delivered on butterfly wings. She is a true wordsmith; her talent is hallmarked by her willingness to share. Everyone who heard her read during the concert hopes that someday *her poems will be set by a fine composer and sung by an ensemble like Lauda!

Among life's pleasures there are few things that compare to a bottle of good French wine, except perhaps a few lines of good French poetry. Les chansons des roses, (Songs of Roses,) with music by Morten Lauridsen setting poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) completed the program quite memorably. This is music I want to hear again.

Lauda! not only delivered Songs of Roses with an harmonic lushness that affected all who heard it, but allowed them to achieve their mission statement that proclaims “Excellence.” And then they surpassed it many fold. Of the five poems I was most enamored by the penultimate: “La rose complète”:

I have such awareness of your being, perfect rose,
that my will unites you with my heart in celebration.
I breathe you in, rose, as if you were all of life,
and I feel the perfect friend of a perfect friend.

I would like to compliment the design, content and presentation of the Lauda! Chamber Singers program booklet. In addition to the joining of advertising and solicitations in an unobtrusive way, on the whole, it served as a wonderful source of music education as well as an efficient concert guide.

One lady within earshot told her companion, "This is the first time I've come to one of these concerts. I'll never miss another!"

[Editor's note: Ray Hahn has written program notes and designed web pages for the Bay-Atlantic Symphony.]

Medieval lust and renunciation
Small forces take on a large work
Sunday, June 6, 2004
By Paul M. Somers

Schola Cantorum on Hudson, Deborah Simpkin King (conductor), Apprentice Chorus of the Newark Boys' Chorus School, Michael Sanflippo (director), Sebastien Cornut, Lois Anderson (first and second pianos), Ken Wespy (timpani), Monica Kuligowski, Robert Romeo, Greg Giannascoli, and Frank Parente (percussion). Carmina Burana (12th century): nos. 185, 24, and 200; Orff: Carmina Burana (1936) in the version with accompaniment by two pianos and percussion. St. Michael Church, Jersey City.

Though the idea of juxtaposing the 12th century Carmina Burana with the 20th century work of the same name by Carl Orff would seem to be obvious, I had never in all my music-listening years heard it done except on the radio a few decades ago. As one can well imagine, Schola Cantorum on Hudson (SCH) music director Dr. Deborah Simpkin King's actual presentation of just that combination created a vivid connection across eight centuries.

When music groups such as the SCH, which can sing with great refinement, are given music which allows them to sound rough and raucous, they usually set to it with a will. Yet in their refinement they have learned how do keep from damaging their voices. This mix of solid technique and bawdy exterior brought the early music to life in what we can only assume to be an authentic manner. The music of seduction and praise to Bacchus, admittedly sandwiching a central song of renunciation, is unlikely to have been sung with the hallowed tones of sacred music. With the able assistance of soloists Bernadette Oberndorf, Paul R. Villarreal, Salvatore Diana, and Jim Gard, the audience was no doubt able to mentally remove themselves from the precincts of St. Michael's Church in Jersey City.

Not only were the three songs as arranged by Dr. King in themselves refreshing, but they set the tone for the 68-year old Orff work. The SCH's performance had every bit of linear beauty necessary, especially in the dreamy sweet sections. But the emphasis was on the mix of the lusty and the refined. Even with but 31 singers including only seven tenors and five basses - generally where the ensemble has found its happiest size - there was great power in the big moments: the opening and closing "O Fortuna", the declamatory "Were diu werlt alle min", and the climactic bars of the penultimate chorus at the title words "Blanziflor et Helena" were sung with the same grand sound one might more readily expect from a chorus three times SCH's size.

The rowdy "In taberna" (In the tavern) set of songs rightly found its musical sibling in the collective singing at a European soccer match. Dr. King kept it from lapsing into spring weekend at many an American center of higher education.

This solved the problem of using voices from within the chorus for solos. Mr. Spataro in the legato, contemplative songs - "Omnia sol temperata", his first, as a fine instance - showed himself to have a very nice baritone.

The high energy of tenor Salvatore Diana in "Aestuans interius (Consumed with rage) counted far more than some of the actual pitches.

Anne McNaughton found the stratospheric note in "Dulcissime" while maintaining a sweet sopranosound - no mean feat - and her "Stetit puella" and "In trutina" were affecting.

The Apprentice Choir of the Newark Boys' Chorus were in fine voice with very clear diction in "Amor volat undique" and exemplified tight ensemble in "Tempus est iocndum" as its tempi changed with well handled *accellerandos.

The grittier, more medieval sound evoked in the two-pianos and percussion version arranged by Orff himself was the perfect pairing to go with the three originals which opened the concert. The percussive energy of the music which was so radical in its time became a favored sound for Orff. His sequel Catulli Carmina (Songs of Catullus) is for two pianos and percussion accompaniment. These players were exciting, sometimes covering the singers, but only at the big moments when a loud noise was more the point.
Reviewed from an archival CD of the concert. I wish I'd been there, but I was at Newark's Prudential Hall.

Festival review

Fickle fame
Baroque purity
Sunday, June 6, 2004
By Henry Wyatt

The Soclair Ensemble. Edward Brewer (leader/ harpsichord), Rufus Müller (tenor), Sandra Miller (baroque flute), Christine Gummere (baroque cello). J. S. Bach: three cantata arias, Sonata in E minor for flute and continuo, BWV 1034, and two-part inventions for keyboard. Telemann: Sonata in A major for flute, harpsichord obbligato, and continuo, and his cantata Was gleicht dem Adel wahre Christen; De Boismortier: Trio Sonata in G minor for flute, cello, and continuo. Soclair Brooks Farm, Lebanon.

The Soclair Ensemble’s offerings of Bach and Telemann made this observer wonder if any Baroque composer can share a program as an equal with Bach. What else can be expected, since we have always elevated Bach to the godhead of music and relegated Telemann to the steerage deck? Open a reference works such as The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and see that the article on J. S. Bach is five times as long as the Telemann article. Open any standard music history text - Claude Palisca’s survey of Baroque music is typical - and see that Bach gets a chapter all to himself and Telemann gets a paragraph.

Now open any treatise or journal of criticism from, say, 1735. Bach is a church cantor in prosperous but provincial Leipzig, respected as a great organist and important writer of pedagogical music such as the Well-Tempered Clavier, but otherwise without reputation or influence. In cosmopolitan Hamburg, Georg Philipp Telemann is cantor at five churches and director of the opera. His reputation is at its height throughout Europe. The two most significant critics of his day in Germany, Johann Mattheson and Johann Adolf Scheibe, consider him one of the leading musicians of the day. Scheibe, who famously dismisses Bach as “turgid” and “artificial” but is an excellent critic, ranks Telemann with a few select composers - amongst them Handel but not Bach - as important composers who brought German music to high international regard. Telemann is cited by two eminent musicians, Marpurg and Quantz, as the model of excellence in musical composition. Johann Gottfried Walther’s Musicalisches Lexicon accords Telemann four times as much space as Walther’s own cousin, J. S. Bach. The final twist: when Telemann declines the cantorate of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, the authorities consider five other candidates; their final choice is J. S. Bach, the sixth candidate.

Have we been laboring under a great historical error all these decades? Ever since Mendelssohn kicked off the Bach revival in 1829 with the first public performance of the St. Matthew Passion in a hundred years, Bach has been received as the gold standard of the High Baroque. But there was no High Baroque. Bach had the style all to himself; everyone else had moved on.

There was no professional jealousy between Telemann and Bach. Indeed, their relationship was cordial, even personal: Bach asked Telemann to stand as godfather to his son Carl Philipp Emanuel. As musicians they admired each other’s art. The beauty, depth and universality we perceive in Bach are reason enough for our worshipful esteem. But Telemann merits our high regard as well, not only for the sake of a more historically accurate perception, but because much of his music is superb.

The Soclair Ensemble gave its audience a fair chance to judge the comparative merits of both composers. In Telemann’s trio sonata the opening movement is a minuet and the melodies are more motivic, almost Handellian, a precursor of the Classical style. The Bach flute sonata begins with a formal slow movement, and in the fast movements there is more continuous passage-work. In both works Baroque flutist Sandra Miller was sylvan and lovely. Cembalist Edward Brewer was technically assured and stylish; later in the afternoon he shined all by himself in a selection of Bach two-part inventions.

Vocal music was well represented, including a genuine rarity, a Telemann cantata. He wrote over 1700, 1400 of which still exist, and according to contemporary accounts there was hardly a Lutheran church in Germany where Telemann cantatas were not performed. The example on this concert was Was gleicht dem Adel wahre Christen, from the 1725-26 collection Der harmonische Gottesdienst. These are intended for churches with limited facilities and are scored for solo voice, melody instrument and *continuo, and were performed immediately after the sermon, a musical-poetic commentary.

Rufus Müller was the musical rhetor. With his bright coloration and precise technique, he made the ideal cantata tenor. His opening aria was delivered in an appropriately sober style. His eloquence was featured in the cantata’s center, the long, sermon-like recitative that develops the main argument, the nobility of the true Christian’s filial relationship with the Heavenly Father. In the closing aria, innocent divine fervor is the focus. Here Telemann employs giddy rhythmic displacements and syncopations and wrong-sounding harmonies appropriate to a child or a beginning music student - the perfect conceit of childish innocence and impulse.

In this work the melody instrument is a flute, and Ms. Miller, the baroque flutist, played with a limpid tone, subtly inflected to render the appropriate affect. She had a busy day, joining Mr. Müller in two cantata arias by Bach. In “Erbarme dich!” from BWV 55, the two soloists emphasized broken phrases and lingering dissonances, the topics of tears that soften God’s own heart; in “Jesus nimmt die Sünder an”, Ms. Miller produced meteor showers of notes, a use of the flute as representing beguilement, just as in the “Coffee Cantata” with its heady, seductive aromas of coffee brewing. In this case, Jesus the Good Shepherd uses the pastoralist’s flute to beguile stubborn sinners to His side.

Another featured soloist was Christine Gummere, playing a five-string Baroque cello. She joined Mr. Müller in a third Bach aria, “Hilf, Jesus, hilf.” Her lean, focused tone was appropriate for the implied persona of Jesus, who comforts the seeker. She was a fine continuo player throughout the concert.

The program included a trio sonata by Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, a French contemporary of Bach and Telemann. It was tuneful, more dance suite than sonata. Enjoyable it surely was, but elevating de Boismortier to the status of his contemporaries in Hamburg and Leipzig will be a difficult undertaking.

Cape May Music Festival
Golden strings in salt air
Instruments ahead of their time
Tuesday, June 9, 2004
By Paul M. Somers

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players: Eric Wyrick, Francine Storck (violins), David Blinn and Brett Deubner (violas), Jonathan Spitz and Jason Lippmann (cellos). Beethoven: "Duet with Two Eyeglasses Obbligato" in E-flat for viola and cello, *WoO 32; Mozart: Viola Quintet in G minor, K. 516; Brahms: Sextet in G major, op. 36. Episcopal Church of the Advent, Cape May.

The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra's "Golden Age Strings" made their appearance in Cape May this summer after a year's worth of the instruments and their custodians getting to know each other. Especially in the generous chamber music acoustics of the Episcopal Church of the Advent, the rich
sounds which have emerged were now heard in their fullness.

Nowhere was this more in evidence than in the great op. 36 Sextet by Brahms.
In brief remarks before the performance principal cellist Jonathan Spitz remarked that even the "*pizzicato is so sonorous on these instruments." The piece has several episodes which depend on pizzicato and, as promised, they sounded more full and rounded than I can ever remember hearing them before.

These instruments in combination were made to play Brahms, though their makers 200 years or so earlier could hardly have know that. The tiniest of nuances were produced at will and the ensemble of all six was impeccable. Brahms' penchant for placing horn calls in the strings on this occasion resulted in emotionally deep evocations of distance in space and time. It really was what one would hope for from players of this calibre.

The effectiveness of the instruments in the hands of such players was evident in the Mozart G minor Viola Quintet. Bay-Atlantic Symphony conductor Jed Gaylin, who was in attendance, quite emphatically noted that the instruments make a difference. I heard more definition than I remember
hearing from the same musicians in the past - though I'm quite willing to suggest that the instruments have upped the level of the players by their mere presence.

The *chromatic figure in the first movement *coda came to life. And the introductory Adagio to the final Allegro was barely recognizable as Mozart, so far had the composer come by that time in his life. The tumble into romanticism was fully portrayed by the players. Again, it was a matter of well conceived accents and matched nuances which became the hallmark of the performance.

The concert began with the rarely performed Duet with Two Eyeglasses Obbligato for viola and cello by Beethoven. Violist Brett Deubner remarked to the audience that it would not be fully authentic because "[cellist] Jason [Lippmann] didn't bring his glasses, and I'm wearing my contacts." To match modern tastes, they switched the two movements to conclude with the Allegro instead of the Minuetto.

The whole piece is a bear to play and to put together. The two produced a performance which was a good representation with whole passages of brilliance - nothing at all embarrassing. But knowing the players' abilities, one has to guess that another rehearsal would have pulled the piece into even more secure shape. Still, it was a nervy and refreshingly brash concert opener.

June 10, 2004

Violinist Nancy Clarke Honored
44 Year Career of Claring Chamber Players Co-Founder Celebrated

Former students of Montclair-area violin teacher Nancy Clarke hosted a tribute to her on Saturday, May 29, 2004, at the Unitarian-Universalist Church, in Montclair.

The tribute began with clinics for string teachers at 9:30 a.m. presented by nationally known clinician Julie Lyonn Lieberman and Rona Goldensher, a Toronto-based baroque music specialist. Ms. Liebermann offered clinics on improvisation and "Playing Healthy", while Ms. Goldensher led a session on baroque performance practice.

Master classes began at 1:30 p.m. with Dr. Jennifer Sacher Wiley of the Susquehanna University Music Department, and Victoria Chiang of the Peabody Conservatory.

The tribute culminated in a solo and chamber music performance at 4:00 p.m. featuring former students of Ms. Clarke and members of the St. Luke's, Orpheus, and New York Philharmonic Orchestras. The concert included works by Mozart, Händel, Julie Lyonn Lieberman, Patrick Long, Enescu, and Mendelssohn.

Nancy Clarke moved to northern New Jersey in 1947 after graduating from the renowned Curtis Institute in Philadelphia where she studied violin with Lea Luboshutz.

Her musical career began in a period when women’s roles in professional classical music were nearly non-existent. Because women were not permitted in major symphony orchestras, she was encouraged by a colleague to audition for Phil Spitalny, conductor of an all-girl orchestra and host of the popular weekly radio show "Hour of Charm". Mrs. Clarke was a member of this prestigious group for five years, participating in its radio and television programs and national tours. To continue playing she was forced to keep her marriage to Stephen Clarke a secret, since Mr. Spitalny didn't permit "his girls" to have either boyfriends or husbands.

Mrs. Clarke began teaching and performing formally in the Montclair area in the 1960's. She founded the Claring Chamber Players with pianist Dorothy Priesing and violist Isabel Richter. She was a member of the New Jersey Symphony, Concertmaster of the Suburban Symphony and Principal Second Violin of the Colonial Symphony under the baton of Oscar Shumsky.

The tenth anniversary of the Claring was marked by a performance with violist Karen Tuttle, internationally acclaimed pedagogue and teacher. Clarke, Priesing, and Tuttle were also joined by Nancy's daughters, violist Sarah Clarke and cellist Rosalyn Clarke, who are now permanent members of the Claring Chamber Players as well as members of the Orpheus and St. Luke's orchestras. The Claring presents three concerts in Montclair each season and up to six in the New York area.

Nancy Clarke maintained a small teaching studio of gifted violinists for 30 years. She chose to teach no more than eight students each week in order to give them longer lessons and attend their performances. This personal attention paid off, as most of her students are active professional musicians today. They have attended such prestigious institutions as the Manhattan, Mannes, and Eastman Schools of Music; and the Cincinnati, Oberlin, and New England Conservatories. They are artist teachers, authors, soloists, orchestral musicians, and artist managers.

American Victoriana
Music to match architecture
Thursday, June 17, 2004
By Paul M. Somers

Cape May Music Festival. Bay-Atlantic Symphony, Jed Gaylin (conductor), Eliot Bailen (cello). Herbert: Cello Concerto no. 2; Dvorák: Symphony no. 9 “From the New World.” Convention Hall, Cape May.

The Cape May ambience of Victoriana was fully in play for the final classical music event of the 2004 season. Both Victor Herbert’s far-too-rarely played Cello Concerto no. 2 and Antonin Dvorák’s popular “New World” Symphony were American products of the British queen’s reign (1837-1901).

Both works are redolent with fiery energy and rhythms perhaps partly inspired by American proto-popular music. Ragtime’s emergence was nearing and Gottschalk’s music has already laid the groundwork for a spicier brand of classical music than that in Europe.

Herbert was a first-rate cellist trained in Stuttgart, Germany. He married the Viennese opera soprano singer Therese Foerster. They came to New York shortly thereafter, she to sing the role of Aïda in the United States premiere, and he as the principal cellist. So it is no wonder that his cello music is often far from the Broadway music he later composed.

Cellist Eliot Bailen gave Herbert’s concerto a driving performance in which all the technical difficulties - and there are many - were mastered and played with apparent ease. While the composer’s songful best emerged in well-shaped long lines, it was Bailen’s way with the blistering acrobatics which left the listeners impressed. Just why the piece is so rarely played is impossible to understand. Is it because Dvorák’s cello concerto is “better”? It is different, but “better” is a word which is not appropriate here. Herbert’s is a very fine and well-made work with a structure far more interesting than many other concertos. Herbert’s mind was quite capable of working at a level far beyond the pop style which later brought him fame.

The audience was most taken with both Herbert and Bailen. Both were known quantities: Herbert for such classic shows as Babes in Toyland and (my favorite) The Red Mill; and Bailen as the inimitable and indomitable cellist of the New York Chamber Players’ Tuesday concerts as part of the Cape May Music Festival. But the listeners had never heard either of them in this light, and their response showed clearly that they were pleased. (See review of Garrett Lakes Music Festival for another Bailen performance.)

Conductor Jed Gaylin, it turns out, had never quite “gotten” Dvorák’s Symphony no. 9. It is, after all, an oddity in the composer’s output. It’s evocations of American topics stand with one foot in the composer’s newly found Americanism and the other firmly anchored in his Bohemian homeland. There are the Song of Hiawatha themes mixed with other pictorial elements like the steam train leaving a station to begin the finale. There is the mysterious ending with its climactic chord followed by an unexpected dying away woodwind “echo.” What to do with it all?

Gaylin, having decided to tackle the problems, solved them with solid musicianship which ultimately dealt with the issues as purely musical, dropping all the programmatic elements in favor of a lucid revelation of the composer’s though process as composer. Details were elevated, motives were clearly limned at each appearance, and the long line of the work was found and kept taut. Gaylin understands how to evoke ebb and flow, even without the ocean a mere hundred or so yards away. So this was a performance which had inherent drama without trying to evoke specific scenes or tell a story in a cinematic sense.

The english horn solo by John Symer was first rate and the horn section’s playing was evocative and accurate.

As a Festival closer one could not have had better repertoire choices, nor more appreciated performances. The orchestra and the Festival are worthy of each other.

Crackling excitement
Folk roots explored
Friday, June 25, 2004
By Robert W. Butts

Chamber Music at Great Gorge: David Niwa (violin), Che-Yen Chen (viola), Michelle Djokic (cello), Gail Niwa (piano). Turina: Quartet in A minor, op. 67; Chopin: Polonaise in F-sharp minor, op. 44, and Polonaise Brillante, op. 3; Brahms: Piano Quartet in G minor, op. 25. St. Francis de Sales Church, Vernon.

Rural settings are often regarded as primary sources for folk music. So, what better for a concert in the green hills of Vernon than selections inspired by and incorporating traditional folk melodies, tunes, or rhythms? This was exactly what was presented at the recent Chamber Music at Great Gorge concert.

Folk-inspired, it must be remembered, does not mean folk-sounding. Under the pens of composers such as Josquin Turina, Frederic Chopin, and Johannes Brahms, any rural origins were deftly transformed into sophisticated music making. “Inspired by” is more the key phrase here rather than “incorporating.”

To be honest, had pianist Gail Niwa not pointed the relationship out, it probably would have gone by pretty much unnoticed so transformed were the traces of origin, though in Brahms one can certainly still detect the passionate energy and soul of what he took to be traditional Hungarian music. After Niwa alerted the audience, however, it did become relatively obvious that folk or folk-like sources were indeed at the heart of much of the music on the program, even in unlikely places.

Other than the generic title "polonaise" and the typical though not always dominating dance rhythm, little of the dance origin can be readily detected in either of the two Chopin works. It must also be admitted, however, that my knowledge of Polish folk- and dance-music comes almost entirely from concert compositions derived from it as conceived by Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Glinka and others. Since the basic underlying rhythm was immediately recognizable, there is in fact more folk inspiration in Chopin than is generally noticed.

Whatever the degree of Polishness, however, both these pieces are clearly concert rather than dance compositions. The first, the Polonaise in F-sharp minor, is a brilliant showpiece, brilliantly played by Ms. Niwa. Her interpretation was highly dramatic, imparting a strong emotional edge to the rich melodic flow. In the process, she demonstrated Chopin's relationship with the styles of *bel canto opera composition as much as with traditional Polish music. The final return of the familiar theme soared with expressive operatic intensity.

Chopin's Polonaise Brillante for cello and piano proved a much different sort of piece. Here we find a rarely encountered totally extrovert side of the composer, a more grab-the-public persona almost at odds with the image of the salon composer whose music generally conjures images of the dreamily romantic æsthetic. This showpiece is much more in line with stories one hears of 19th century artists like violinist Ole Bull or pianist Louis Gottschalk wowing the public. Well, whether typical of Chopin or not, wow the public this work definitely did with an unbeatable performance by Niwa and cellist Michelle Djokic. Niwa settled back largely in a supportive role while the cello part practically exploded from Djokic's bow and strings. Ever in full control, Djokic effortlessly glided through the full range of her fingerboard, at times ready to push the notes even beyond the fingerboard into the cello’s stratosphere. While dazzling the audience with virtuosic bravura, however, Djokic never compromised her artistry and musicality. Every phrase was carefully molded and Chopin's warm lyricism colored every measure.

The Brahms and Turina quartets were more recognizably folk-tinged, if sometimes in color and nuance as much as in actual melody. Turina's work was the real discovery of the concert. A movingly effective composition reminiscent of 1920s French-influenced stylistic tendencies, the quartet's three movements moved fluidly with elements that seemed to blend Parisian salon or café with touches of the Spanish countryside. Melodies poured forth in abundance, frequently inflected with Spanish nuances, ornamental turns, or chromatic twists. All four musicians were totally involved with the piece, conveying their enjoyment to the audiences. At times the harmonies and rhythms came across with Gershwinesque verve and excitement. Still, with all this, the piece maintained a distinctively original tone that was clearly Turina's musical voice within an early twentieth century musical landscape.

Brahms's masterpiece was everything one could want. Beautifully lyrical where the melodies soared, warmly romantic where the harmonies took on a sensual hue, and absorbingly exciting where the music snapped with breakneck energy.

Aside from the wonderful music on stage, it was a treat to see a large audience fully into the musical experience. Especially wonderful was the mixed audience drawn to these concerts, making the evening fully a family affair with satisfied listeners of all ages.