|
Please note: Throughout Classical New Jersey Society reviews some words are found preceded by an asterisk (*). This indicates that the word is defined or discussed in the IOW (In Other Words) section of our website. If you are looking for a special definition or discussion, click on the alpha-clickbar below or the actual word, if it is hyperlinked. A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H-I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P-Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X-Y-Z |
A gem of the Harlem Renaissance ...
... in the hands of a gem of modern jazz
Saturday, February 12, 2005
By Paul M. SomersPrinceton Pro Musica, Frances Fowler Slade (conductor), Rochelle Ellis (soprano), Charles W. Evans (baritone), Megan Lintott and Myra Ortega (sopranos), Stephen F. P. Karr (piano); Trenton Children's Chorus High School Division, Victor Shen (director), Covenant Singers, Sue Ellen Page and Shen (co-directors), Jim Ridl Quartet. Brubeck: Hold Fast to Dreams. Nassau Presbyterian Church, Princeton.
The poetry of Langston Hughes is among the nation's literary high points, as was the poet himself a major figure in that pantheon of African-American artists of the Harlem Renaissance who were of such quality that only "American" now applies. Race, though important to Hughes and to us, has no place in his ranking as a great poet. The opening poem of Dave Brubeck's evening-long cantata Hold Fast to Dreams, "The Dream Keeper," reads:
Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers,
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.That speaks to every one of us without regard to any descriptive other than human.
It took a great soul to set Hughes' poetry. Who can forget seeing Brubeck in tears in Ken Burns' series on jazz as he described the violence done to a black friend of his father? It took a commission ten years ago from the Trenton Children's Chorus and the Choirs for Children and Youth of Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton to draw forth Hold Fast to Dreams from Brubeck's pen. This performance used the same music but somewhat re-ordered. No matter, it was a moving experience performed to an audience which filled Nassau Presbyterian to capacity.
The Princeton Pro Musica, which was the primary chorus in this performance, was not only in fine technical shape - diction, pitch, ensemble all completely in order - but was clearly involved emotionally. They understood conductor Frances Slade's phrasing not only because she told them clearly what she wanted but because they felt it deeply even as she drew it from them. This was some of the most intense choral singing I can remember.
So, too, the children, the dreamers and the innocents, who knew the piece was an important part of their ensemble's history. They sang with a firmness of purpose which was rooted in ownership.
Though the texts never overtly identify the poet as black, they speak of concerns for freedom and fulfilling aspirations, of loneliness, of a dream deferred. Making the point more visible were the two main soloists, soprano Rochelle Ellis and baritone Charles Wesley Evans, both African-American singers of high repute.
Ellis, a veteran soloist on the faculty at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, ran the full gamut of soprano techniques. From acrobatics over a boogie bass, to penetratingly emotional lyricism, she lived within the music. It was she who had sung the premiere.
Evans, a very effective baritone who is an alumnus (over a decade ago) of the American Boychoir School, has become a marvelous baritone who sang with grit or artful lyricism as required. Surely his finest moment was the art-song made of "Final Curve" and "Search." The angular, mysterious vocal line was secure and taut.
Two high school-aged sopranos, Megan Lintott and Myra Ortega, were quite extraordinary. Their role was similar to the Three Spirits in Mozart's The Magic Flute - spirits who speak truisms or deliver little gems. Brubeck's writing for them is special and these two could not be bettered.
Stephen F. P. Karr was a sensitive accompanist in the non-jazz sections, often showing his skill with art song. His technique was certainly in working order, but so was his contact with the music.
All of Brubeck's cantatas contain jazz quartet segments which, at least in this work, are optional. Slade elected to use them and so engaged what was listed as the Jim Ridl Quartet. The four had never played together as a group, but they were so good that they should consider it. The jazz was top of the line, consciously or not imbued with the essential taste and ethos of the great Brubeck Quartet of the '50s and '60s - the spare drum solos, the full but smooth sax sound, the solid and inventive acoustic bass, and above all the pianist's combination of melodic invention and richly extended chords.
As Karr and Ridl swapped the piano bench back and forth between them all evening, there was not one mishap where there could have been many. Without looking the place where one left off and the other took up was seamless.
The showstopper "Boogie 1 A.M." found chorus and quartet cooking along with such a swing that it was the only possible encore to the rousing and lengthy ovation which greeted the performers at the conclusion.
Not often enough performed
Romantic Gems
Saturday, February 12, 2005
By Jason C. TrammHaddonfield Symphony Orchestra, Rossen Milanov (Conductor), Mariana Karpatova-Penev (Mezzo-Soprano). All Tchaikovsky program: The Tempest, A Symphonic Fantasy after Shakespeare, op. 18 (1873); Romances; Symphony no. 1 in G minor ("Winter Daydreams"), op. 13 (1866, Revised 1874). Lenape Regional Performing Arts Center, Marlton.
The Haddonfield Symphony Orchestra's all-Tchaikovsky program provided enthusiastic audience members with an early Valentine's day treat. The combination of Tchaikovsky and this time of the year are an instant programmatic success, but what made this evening more charming was the choice of wonderful lesser-known works by the great romantic composer. This combined with the superb playing of some of the finest young orchestral musicians under the eloquent direction of conductor, Rossen Milanov, made for a memorable performance. The program opened with The Tempest, a Symphonic Fantasy after Shakespeare (1873), written shortly after the immensely popular Romeo and Juliet Overture. Tchaikovsky's second foray into the Shakespearean-based concert overture provided ample opportunities to depict nature and develop the disparate characters of the play. The orchestra played with hushed intensity and beautifully precise ensemble in the demanding opening section, labeled "The Sea." As in any piece where the sea is musically portrayed, the obligatory storm that followed was effectively foreshadowed by the quiet and brooding opening of the piece.
The low brass section played particularly well, providing the intensification of the storm with a unified and blended tone that never interfered with the overall balance. Mr. Milanov's attention to detail was extraordinary, his masterful negotiation of the phrasing and powerful sense of drama turned the storm into a cataclysmic event.
The most memorable part of this piece was certainly the lush and passionate love theme, which occurred (in typical Tchaikovsky fashion) many times with increasingly intense orchestration. The first violins soared on the reprise with an appropriately robust sound, although the intonation became an issue in a few passages. Overall, the piece was a triumph and the audience's considerable ovation was well-deserved.
Mariana Karpatova-Penev then sang three selections from the Romances (op. 6, op. 28, and op. 47). All three pieces were portrayed with the deepest pathos and sense of loss that pervades so much of Tchaikovsky's music. Ms. Karpatova-Penev's luscious mezzo voice was clear and lovely, even over the well controlled orchestral tuttis.
The third selection (Was I not a little blade of grass, op. 47, no. 7) was particularly moving, with its rangy final passage which sunk into the lowest reaches of the mezzo register to illustrate the hopeless despair of the text.
The orchestra was certainly at its best in the demanding Symphony No 1, in G minor "Winter Daydreams" (op. 13). The first two movements were richly programmatic, with ensemble and intonation that was impeccable. The principal flute and oboe (Kimberly Trolier and Ariana Ghez) intertwined splendidly in the second movement, perfectly depicting the "Land of desolation, Land of mists" specified by Tchaikovsky.
The final movement of this symphony is an orchestral tour de force beginning with a buoyant Russian folksong-like theme, which exudes energy and vitality. The strings executed the many bubbling, virtuosic passages flawlessly and each variation on the theme was fresh and interesting. The most interesting in my opinion was the fugal variation. Tchaikovsky's music was criticized in his lifetime for being too "Germanic" by some of his countrymen and too "Russian" by many European critics. By combining Russian folk elements and strict "German" fugal procedures, he is seeking to reconcile these elements in a single variation! Mr. Milanov's control over the intricate "seams" of the music was key to the success of the work as a whole.
The presenting of lesser-known works of great composers often results in their being viewed as mere oddities or steps in the creative process. Mr. Milanov and the Haddonfield Symphony provided a sound case for their acceptance on their own terms. Residents of New Jersey (throughout the state) will be well rewarded by seeking out future performances of the quite centrally located Haddonfield Symphony.
Valentine's bouquet
Pop and classical borderlands
Sunday, February 13, 2005
By Henry WyattLyrica Chamber Music. Laura Bossert and Wolfgang Tsoutsouris (violins), Paula Majerfeld, (viola), Rebecca Thornblade (cello), Mariel Bossert (piano). Beethoven: Romance in F for violin, op. 50; Shoenfield: Café Music; Granados: "Intermezzo" from Goyescas; Albéniz: "Cordoba" from Chants d'Espagne, Sous le palmier, and En la playa; De Falla: "Farruca" from The Three-Cornered Hat; Ellington: Mood Indigo; Gershwin: Lullaby. Presbyterian Church, Chatham Township.
Lyrica Chamber Music presented a St. Valentine's bouquet in high style. The first bloom was a violin romance by Beethoven. The Classic-era romanza was a slow instrumental movement, usually in a major key with a minor-key middle section that provides a contrasting mood. The effect, as in the "Romanza" movement of Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik, is that of a lovers' nocturnal tryst in a garden, suddenly interrupted by an unexpected storm, dramatic and redolent of danger, followed by renewed intimacy. The return of the major key in Beethoven's Romance is a heightening of passion, which violinist Laura Bossert expressed with great intensity. Pianist Mariel Bossert's knowing and wise collaboration, with its slow dotted rhythms and other noble devices, was the emotional ballast.
The other work of the concert's first half, Café Music of Paul Schoenfield (born in 1948), is a fully-composed piano trio that Beethoven might have written had he lived in New York in 1927 or thereabouts, and had taken the A-train up to Harlem. The first movement is a "souvenir de stride," a bow to James P. Johnson and the other great Harlem pianists of a now-legendary time. Mariel Bossert rocked the box, and Laura Bossert recalled the hot-jazz stylings of Stephane Grappelli. Echoes of the introspective and melancholy Scott Joplin permeate the slow movement, a vehicle for cellist Rebecca Thornblade's lyricism, enhanced by *portamento slips and slides. All three players cooked in the finale that suggests Prokofiev taken by Fats Waller to a Lenox Avenue rent party.
Mr. Schoenfield's verve in no way compromises his craftsmanlike understanding of sonata process in this fine work. It deserves a secure place in the contemporary chamber repertoire. Lyrica did it justice.
Ellington and Gershwin each made an appearance in the concert's second half. Having two of this nation's most prominent composers on the same bill showed how alike they were: opulent and sensual men endowed with intellectually and musically complicated personalities; superb tunesmiths who possessed dense harmonic and textural palettes that were further enriched by close study of Stravinsky, Debussy and Ravel (and, in Gershwin's case, Schoenberg). Both composers personified the ingenuity and sophistication of the American
popular standard, which they intended to elevate to high art.Duke Ellington's great Mood Indigo was arranged by violinist Wladimir Selinsky into a set of variations for string quartet, very lush - Billy Strayhorn, Ellington's great arranger, would have approved - and very swank "au Hot Club de France."
George Gershwin's Lullaby, published thirty years after his death, is a genuine quartet movement, a confection of habañera languors with hints of stride rhythm, underlaid with complex harmonies and rich voicings. No nursery tune this; rather, this sensuous music makes sultry glances towards the boudoir. In both numbers violinist Laura Bossert was the sophisticated lady, again showing her jazzy side with aplomb.
The rest of the second half was an assortment of colorful florets by Granados, Albéniz, and de Falla in stylish arrangements for string quartet by Terry King, himself a fine cellist. All the quartet members had their moments in the Iberian sun, especially violist Paula Majerfeld in Granados' intermezzo. As an ensemble they ranged from the elegaic in the En la playa of Albéniz to the gutsy and gritty in de Falla's familiar Farruca. The players took every opportunity, and Mr. King's talent for arrangement gave them every opportunity.
An all-Russian program breaks out . . .
. . . replete with "Siberian" snow
Thursday, February 24, 2005
By Jason C. TrammNew Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Järvi (conductor), Esther Jung-A Park, winner of the 2004 Young Artist Audition (piano). Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1, op. 23; Glazunov: Symphony no. 5, op. 55. State Theatre, New Brunswick.
On a crazy winter night when members of the orchestra arrived late due to a swirling February snow storm, and the members of the audience, which numbered approximately 150, were told that the overture (Brahms: Academic Festival Overture, op. 80) would have to be cut for times' sake, the NJSO revived its hardiest fans with a program that featured a bright new solo star and presented a lesser known symphonic work by Alexander Glazunov. Despite the disappointment of many in not hearing the old Brahms chestnut, this omission actually served to unite the concert programmatically, presenting works by two Russian composers both of whom combined their national musical heritage with western European compositional technique.
The highlight of the evening was certainly the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto no. 1. Making her NJSO subscriber series debut (she had, of course played with the orchestra when she won the Young Artists Auditions last spring), Esther Jung-A Park played this marvelous warhorse with a boldness and passion that far exceeded her age. Her wonderful technique shone as her fingers blazed through the most difficult passages with aplomb, and her execution of the first movement *cadenza was particularly exciting. The small but mighty audience certainly agreed, giving Ms. Park a rousing standing ovation and having her return to the stage twice.
What made this particular performance even more memorable was the beautifully nuanced performance by the orchestra. Mæstro Järvi led with a tremendous sense of detail and polish, particularly in the strings whose playing was breathtaking throughout the evening. I have heard this piece many times, but the orchestral *pianos and *pianissimos achieved by the NJSO were purely magical, providing much welcome contrast - something too often missing in many performances. This allowed the audience to fully savor the soaring *tutti refrains which have made Tchaikovsky's music so justly famous. The "chamber music" quality achieved in the second movement represents an ideal that many other far more famous orchestras just don't achieve.
The Glazunov Symphony No. 5, while an interesting work, didn't elicit the same audience enthusiasm or depth of expression. Although Glazunov was obviously influenced by his famous countryman, his lyrical melodies never seem to approach the same level of emotional depth. The monolithic introduction, Mendelssohnian Scherzo, and roof-raising finale presented in this piece were all "correct" but lacked the expressive spark that has made the symphonies of Tchaikovsky immortal.
The orchestra played equally well in this piece, with the lone exception being a very uncertain brass entrance in the second movement. The audience certainly gave the work only a lukewarm and seated reception, but was granted a most welcome encore.
Mæstro Järvi began the charming trio-like wind piece (Anatol Liadov's charming A Musical Snuffbox) then walked off the stage, a completely unexpected and humble gesture that showed his complete faith in the players. He returned briefly from the side of the stage to give a random comedic percussion cue and left once more, delighting the audience. The addition of humor to a symphonic concert was most welcome and appreciated by the select few members of this stalwart audience! The combination of the NJSO and Järvi indeed gives the New Jersey musical community something to cheer about.
The Concert Hall at Drew University
Shakedown cruise
Saturday, February 26, 2005
By Paul M. SomersSummit Chorale, Richard Garrin (conductor), Jay Ludwig, Joni Fritz (narrators), Rochelle Ellis (soprano), David Huneryager (baritone), Priscilla Lee (cello), Thomas J. Cuffari (piano). McCullough: Holocaust Cantata (Songs from the Camps); Traditional Spirituals, arranged by Moses Hogan, Jay Althouse, and Hall Johnson; Bach: Cello Suite no. 1 in G major, Sarabande, and Menuet I and II; Chopin: Nocturne in C-sharp minor, op. posth.; Simon: "A Bit of Earth" from The Secret Garden; Rossini: "Largo al factotum" from Il barbiere di Siviglia; three Hebrew songs. The Concert Hall at Drew, Dorothy Young Arts Center, Madison.
The first concert open to the general public in the brand new Concert Hall in Drew University's Dorothy Young Arts Center was by the Summit Chorale under its new music director Richard Garrin. The Chorale is in residence at the university.
In this case there was no sense of familiarity; it is unique within the state. The 439-seat theater has a false ceiling made of sailcloth which is rigged rather like a tightly stretched tent about 10 feet below the actual top of the room. In the center is what is called "The Jewel," a large lozenge-shaped cloth-covered framework hanging in the center with lighting instruments hung around its circumference. But you can't convince me that there is anything jewel-like about the structure: it's a sailboat hull from its waterline downward and sans keel, the sharp point of the bow facing the audience rear of the hall. Whatever it is, it works very well as a sound mixer, and the preponderance of wood in the environment provides warmth as it resonates.
It was unfortunate that the stage was littered with microphones for recording the concert, because many in the audience thought that the very present sound was the result of amplification. It was only the narrators who were artificially boosted. The actual proof of the effectiveness of the new hall was the all-too-brief unaccompanied performance by cellist Priscilla Lee. The wooden stage acted as an additional resonator and her playing filled the hall. And even with the lid down on the piano, Thomas Cuffari's highly nuanced playing was enhanced by the generous acoustic. Several post-concert chats with quite a number of Chorale members revealed that the sound on stage is just as immediate as it is for the audience.
There are some clever technical matters which are worth reporting. There is a three-warning system of synthesized "chimes" which tells the audience how much time is left before the performance begins or intermission ends. Even here there is a musical plan, for the first warning is a minor triad, then comes a melody in major, and finally a major triad.
If only all the halls would use the same cell phone warning in use at Drew! Simply stated, the sound of a ringing cell phone is played over the speaker system. Everyone with a cell phone immediately got the hint without a word being spoken (though I think I heard a woefully underamplified announcement). Never before have I seen such a universally mad scramble to shut the things off! The result was a concert completely devoid of beeping interruptions. We hope other halls in NJ and elsewhere will consider this dramatic and effective method of delivering the message.
Noting all this was, of course, but ancillary to the actual concert.
Mr. Garrin had constructed an evening which resonated not only acoustically but spiritually with the agony of music actually sung in the Nazi concentration camps and first person narratives of experiences and feelings from those who lived and died within the horror.
Even those who had steeled themselves for another encounter with the Holocaust, some of us by now perhaps even enured to the experience through long familiarity, could not help but be affected by the specificity of Donald McCullough's Holocaust Cantata (Songs from the Camps). These are his arrangements of real songs actually sung, often in secret, in such outposts of Hell as Majdanek, Buchenwald, and Brzezinka. It is a wonder that the choir could even sing, yet not only did they perform that basic function, they found deep expression within the *strophic, often simple melodies and McCullough's always apt arrangements.
Between each vocal selection is a reading of a personal account of some aspect of life and death in one of the camps. Most were read by Jay Ludwig in a chillingly matter-of-fact manner, as if he were telling a story about fishing with Uncle Ed, except that here the denouement was not something amusing but murder or suicide. When Joni Fritz spoke, she was a touching voice of innocence betrayed. When the narrators spoke, every eye on stage was directed to remain on them, keeping the audience's focus from drifting.
Mr. McCullough's hand in the work is most evident in the instrumental writing for cello and piano. This is always rhapsodic and elegiac, but nowhere as moving and powerful as in "The Train", sung with powerful emotional contact by baritone David Huneryager.
If there is anything amusing in this work, it is the spoken account of barrels of wine being smuggled into a camp and a group of inmates getting drunk and saying, "There's no life like life at Auschwitz." This is followed by a tango for cello and piano, its melody (like three of the six choral works) by the otherwise unidentified J. Kropinski. It was at once a dance of death and a vision of life in some happier future.
The Cantata concluded with soprano Rochelle Ellis and the Chorale singing "Song of Days Now Gone." The melody is quite related to "Dark Eyes," but the arrangement lifted it from a romantic sentiment to something not unlike the ghostly whispers on the wind of Shostakovich's Piano Trio no. 2. The final tones are the highest pitches on the piano played *pianississimo.
What followed the intermission - and here the interval was needed for recovery - was a set of refractions of the Holocaust Cantata. Ms. Ellis's soulful rendering of three African-American Sorrow Songs were, of course, moving in their own right. But context was everything. It was impossible to miss the suffering of African-American slaves which lies at the roots of the songs. And just as even the assimilated non-practicing Jew often became a practicing Jew in the camps, the fervor of the special Christianity which was born of the slave experience was equal witness to the strength found in religion in the face of brutality and oppression.
The anomaly seemed at first to be Ms. Lee's exquisite rendering of the Sarabande and Menuets I and II from Bach's Cello Suite no. 1. But as the well-phrased and elegant reading progressed, it became a reminder that Germany was also a place which generated some of the highest moments of western civilization. And in turn this lovely music warned us that we, too, could engage in a holocaust. All that was needed to complete that picture was some Native American singing.
Mr. Cuffari's performance of Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor was filled with beauty and tension. Its deep humanity reminded one of the true nature of those millions of educated and cultured Poles who were the prime targets for murder by the Nazis.
Mr. Huneryager, a veteran of opera and Broadway, sang "A Bit of Earth" from The Secret Garden, floating the final high D impeccably. Part of its text proved to be the moral center of the whole evening: "The earth is old and doesn't care ...," which is to say that it is up to us to be good to each other; there is no outside force going to make it so.
While he absolutely wowed the audience with his technically solid and comic rendition of Rossini's "Largo al factotum" from Il barbiere di Sivigla, there was during this evening a great irony present. The song is, after all, Figaro describing himself as nothing less than a superman of Seville - the Nazi Übermensch mentality reduced to comic parody, and in Spain no less, where the Nazis warmed up.
And then we finally came not full circle, for that would be to return to the camps, but found our current place in the spiral which is history. For we arrived at Jerusalem as both a symbol and as a Zionist reality. The chorus returned to the stage and in Hebrew sang prayers for the peace of Jerusalem, the golden city.
The final song of the evening's program, Jerusalem Is Mine by Kenny Karen as arranged by Matthew Lazar, proved to be a true sign of assimilation: it sounded like Jewish John Rutter, predictable easy-listening stuff replete with suspended cymbal rolls to attain that extra "lift" without having to do much thinking. I was oddly reminded of the episode in the final section of James Michener's The Source in which the young lady turns down the intense young Israeli man and goes off with the glitzy rich American major supporter of the UJA.
The encore, beautiful though Shenandoah is - and this was a gorgeous arrangement sung with great musicality - is about leaving Virginia to "cross the wide Missouri", which is to say expanding into the west, And we all know who followed the Trail of Tears as part of the American search for more space - Lebensraum, as Hitler called it. We were reminded again that the seeds of the Holocaust lie within all our histories, right next to the seeds of all our best expressions of ourselves. If we pay attention, recognizing this internal division, perhaps it can serve as a preventative against the extremes of arrogance and despair.