Cape May Music Festival - 2005

Tuesday Chamber Music Concerts. Episcopal Church of the Advent.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005;

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Chamber Ensemble. Hector Falcon (violin), Alexandra Gorokhovsky (violin/viola), David Blinn (viola), Ted Ackerman, Gretchen Gonzales (cellos). Beethoven: Duo no. 1 in C major, WoO 27/1; Dohnányi: Serenade for String Trio in C major, Op. 10; Schubert: String Quintet in C major, D. 959.

May 31, 2005;

New York Chamber Ensemble, Alan Kay (director/clarinet); Renée Jolles (violin), Eliot Bailen (cello), Jon Klibonoff (piano). R. Schumann: Drei Romanzen, op. 94; J. S. Bach: Unaccompanied Cello Sonata, BWV 1011 in C minor; Fe. Mendelssohn: Konzertstück no. 2 in D minor, op. 114; Hanns Eisler: Präludium und Fuge über B-A-C-H; Fe. Mendelssohn: Piano Trio ini D minor, op. 49.

June 7, 2005;

NYCE. "Fairest Isle": music of Purcell, Händel, and Locke. Robert Wolinsky (harpsichord/host), Susan Rotholz (flute), Renée Jolles and Andrea Schultz (violins), Ah Ling Neu (viola), Eliot Bailen (cello), with Leena Chopra (soprano).

and June 14, 2005

NYCE. "The Jazz Element V: The Americas." Susan Rotholz (flute), Alan R. Kay (clarinet/host), Michael Lowenstern (clarinet/bass clarinet), Nancy Billmann (horn), Mark Gould (trumpet), Chris Oldfather (piano), Chris Parker (drums), Renée Jolles (violin), Liuh-Wen Ting (viola), Eliot Bailen (cello), Jordan Frazier (bass). Music by Piazzolla, Sammy Timberg, Raymond Scott, Aaron Grad, Gershwin, Pixinguinha, Zequinha Abreu and Barriero, and Freiberg.

Thursday/Saturday Evening Orchestral Concerts. Convention Hall.

May 26, 2005

Bay-Atlantic Symphony, Jed Gaylin (conductor), Chee-Yun (violin). Lalo: Symphony espagnole; Raymond Wojcik: Cape May Reflections II - The Art Spirit (premiere); Bizet: Selections from l'Arlesienne.

June 2, 2005

Bay-Atlantic Symphony, Jed Gaylin (conductor); Eroica Trio: Erika Nickrenz (piano), Adela Peña (violin), Sara Sant'Ambrogio (cello). Sibelius: Symphony no. 5 in E-flat major, op. 82 (1919 final version); Beethoven: Triple Concerto in C major, op. 56.

June 9, 2005

Bay-Atlantic Symphony, Jed Gaylin (conductor); Susan Rotholz (flute). Mozart: Overture to Don Giovanni, K. 527; Flute Concerto no. 1 in G major, K. 313; Symphony no. 39 in E-flat, K. 543.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Bay-Atlantic Symphony, Jed Gaylin (conductor), Adam Neiman (piano). Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1, op. 15, in C major; Brahms Symphony No. 1, op 68, in C minor.

By Paul M. Somers

For the 16th year Cape May added its music festival to the usual Victoriana-by-the-Sea ambience. And again the pre-season event proved to be a success. Those who tally such things assure us that the festival brings in over $2 million, and that is hardly a minor matter. But for those who attend it's about the music, not how much money they introduced into the tourism economy.

This year was certainly an artistic success. As usual we heard the annual visit of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players featuring some of the Golden Age Strings, the Bay-Atlantic Symphony with conductor Jed Gaylin's engaging presence, and the New York Chamber Players with its history as the only group with the Festival for its full 16-year-tenure and with Alan Kay, the always warm host. The presence of Elder Hostel attendees the first week filled the Episcopal Church of the Advent, leaving some wondering how attendance would be the next week when the EH folks were gone. But old hands knew that the Tuesday evening chamber concerts are always filled or nearly so, with or without the Hostel crowd. As for the orchestral concerts, the crowds audiences from respectable to excellent as the summer draws nearer and the population increases.

Chamber concerts
New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Chamber Ensemble

The single concert by the NJSO string quintet could have taken the old song title "By the Sea, By the Sea, By the Beautiful C," since the concert was, after all, by the sea, and then all three pieces are in C major. Since a string quartet plus an extra cello was the make-up of the quintet, one did not even have to look at the printed program to predict that the large work would be the great Schubert *Cello Quintet, arguably one of the finest chamber works for strings ever composed.

A sense of proportion and balance in every movement raised this performance of the Quintet to a high level. Nowhere was this more evident than in the exquisite playing of the Adagio. The players knew how to suspend time, as it were, in the slow *A section. Thus in the agitated B section they were able to create a sense of urgency without undue pushing of the tempo.

They also took the measure of the hall quite well as they kept their dynamic range wide to accommodate the live ambience of the hall.

The only element of the performance which kept the quintet of orchestral players from the highest level of chamber players was their *intonation. While it was far, far better than merely acceptable, it was not at that absolute pinnacle one finds in the top professional chamber ensembles which play together consistently and constantly.

Such connoisseur niceties hardly mattered to the enthusiastic full house. They quite rightly were moved to provide an instant standing ovation with cheers to match.

Erno Dohnányi's Serenade for String Trio inhabits three musical worlds simultaneously: high seriousness, humor, and grotesquerie - the same worlds so familiar to Prokofiev. Violinist Hector Falcon, violist David Blinn, and cellist Ted Ackerman played with its century-old chromaticism superheated, yet with less neuroticism than Schoenberg's contemporaneous creations. It mattered not whether it was the skittering Scherzo or the glorious shimmering nocturnal ending of the "Theme and Variations" movement, for the trio met every technical and musical challenge. The final rondo galloped along at full tilt with a *coda which referred back to the opening March and the sweet Romanza, all held together through intelligent performing.

The concert began with violist Alexandra Gorokhovsky and cellist Gretchen Gonzales playing Beethoven's Duo in C major, a work without opus number. Sometimes these pieces unpublished in Beethoven's lifetime are considered to be of little consequence, yet this duo is quite an attractive work. Mss. Gorokhovsky and Gonzales certainly played it with energy and musicality. It may be that the remainder of the evening's success was partly due to early recognition that more dynamic contrast was needed in this first work of the evening.

New York Chamber Ensemble

As he usually does, Alan Kay put together three programs with themes. The most memorable single work of the series was doubtless the premiere of Aaron Grad's Concertino for Clarinet which took place during "The Jazz Element V" concert. Lest one think that this writer's bias toward new music is at play, let me assure the reader that the piece had more intermission and post-concert buzz than any other piece old or new of the series.

Bay-Atlantic conductor Jed Gaylin, who attended, suggested that Grad's piece sounded at times rather like flamenco, while this writer certainly heard West Side Story in the finger snaps delivered by the chamber ensemble and the latin jazz references.

Kay was was kept busy with a virtuoso part which "wowed" the audience. But he was hardly the only player with a lot to do. The central "Ballad", sort of an homage to the great love music of old films, had a violin solo which could have earned Renée Jolles an "Oscar" if only there were a film to match. And Eliot Bailen's beautifully executed stratospheric cello solo was part of the mix as well.

It was, however, the "Closer" (as the finale is actually called) which grabbed the audience. This was music for more than the "usual" kind of playing: bows tapped on stands as percussion instruments and complex rhythms were clapped by the ensemble with their instruments in their laps. Meanwhile Kay zoomed all over the place with his clarinet. It was conceived of and executed as a tour de force!

For all the entertaining elements, the score was exceptionally well-made, clearly defined by motives and melodies. And one an all in the audience commented on the expertise of Grad's orchestration. The young composer (b. 1980) already has found a voice which speaks of jazz-pop and "classical" influences in a heady and healthy mixture. Certainly in writing a solo for Mr. Kay the performer's own predilection for jazz-based works was given full consideration. There is virtuosity galore, and Kay pulled it off in most exciting fashion. This is a piece which should join the clarinet repertoire quickly.

The other jazz-influenced music on the program included a spirited collection of music for cartoons by Sammy Timberg and Raymond Scott arranged by Kay. It included the Betty Boop "Ya Gotta Have Pep". Throughout the nifty pieces the performances were of the highest order, right up there at the studio-musician level of the originals.

Bass clarinetist Michael Lowenstern, who was part of the ensemble, featured himself quite effectively in two Brazilian Choros. Most amazing and effective was the long passage in Pixinguinha's Proezas de solon for bass clarinet and piccolo at not the octave or the fifteenth, but at the 22nd!! The intonation was impeccable and thus made a delicious color.

The final Argentinean set included a great Milonga by Daniel Freiberg (called the "Gershwin of 111th Street") and concluded with the virtuosic El penultimo by Astor Piazzolla arranged by Kay. Such playing! It brought the audience to its feet instantly. Not a bad way to conclude the Festival's chamber music series.

Those of a more traditional mind were entranced by "Leipzig, Musical City."Mr. Kay was joined by Ms. Jolles and Mr. Bailen as well as by well-known pianist Jon Klibonoff, one of the finest chamber collaborators around. In this first concert of the NYCE's series it was right that it open with a clarinet work. The audience so connects Kay with the series and the ensemble that anything else would have seemed odd. So we heard that staple of all clarinetists, the Three Romances by Robert Schumann. Kay again reminded the listeners of just why they love his playing: he changes color to fit the music so well. For Schumann, for instance, he kept his sound round and "covered" with just enough edge to provide focus. The ensemble in both the areas of unison intonation and the synchronization of rhythm was of the highest.

The best-known of the works was the symphonically textured Piano Trio in D minor by Mendelssohn. The oft-repeated comment is that it is a piano concerto with violin and cello accompaniment. While this makes a degree of sense, it sells short the demands placed upon the two string players.

With Kay sitting in the audience, the remaining piano trio played this masterpiece for all they were worth. They are worth quite a bit. So affecting was the opening movement alone that the audience gave it a solid round of applause before the second movement could begin. This is a sophisticated audience, so they really meant it. Klibonoff justified his presence fully in his gloriously poetic piano solo of the Andante, though he played at top level throughout the evening.

The *leggiero visit to Mendelssohn's private land of færie disappeared in a magical *pianississimo. And the finale was nothing if not totally bravura for all. One person commented "pure chops", which was not the whole truth, for I responded "pure musicality." When it received an instant standing ovation, this writer was far from the last to stand.

The Mendelssohn Concert piece for *clarinet trio, also in D minor, proved to be a fiery, *Sturm und Drang Mendelssohn. The clarinet writing is obviously influenced by Weber, which kept Kay busy. The highlight of the first half was doubtless the clarinet/cello writing in the *coda.

Eliot Bailen's performance of J. S. Bach's C minor Suite for Solo Cello, reviewed in an earlier issue of CNJSJ as part of the North Jersey Bach Festival, was here revealed in its dual and paradoxical role as the source of both great lyricism and granitic solidity. Mr. Bailen found both and even managed to merge them, though Bach really does not permit them to blend together. Bailen's big *double stops in the *Courante seemed massive in the resonant (though not echoing) acoustic. His Saraband was so meditative as to reach beyond form. The fleet *presto in *triple meter which makes up *Gavotte II was incredibly well executed. If the final *Gigue was a dancing relief from the high seriousness of the earlier movements, the lasting image is that of Bailen creating a massive sound on one instrument.

The Präludium und Fuge über B-A-C-H by the otherwise unknown Hanns Eisler proved to be a didactic work in which the eponymous letters are clearly the single building block. Of the three composers represented, he was the only one actually born in Leipzig. Schumann and Mendelssohn gravitated there for its orchestra, and Bach, though born not all that far away, ended his days there because that was where he found employment. Kay's remark about the Eisler piece put it in its proper perspective: "This is what you call an oddity." Eisler was more engaging as a personality: exiled from 1934 Germany as a left-wing Jew, he was later exiled from the USA by the House un-American Activities Committee as a left-winger with "Jew" a possible "gentlemen's agreement" subtext.

After the concert some of us were left wondering about just why it took ten minutes for the management to rid the hall of the noise of an idling motorcycle. Sure, we hear such intrusions on occasion with a traffic light at the corner of Franklin and Washington right outside the Church of the Advent. But it seems inattentive to have the noise continue well past the duration for two traffic light cycles. This began as Mr. Bailen came on stage alone. He stated that he would not play until the noise was gone (applause). This left him giving an off-the-top-of-his-head lecture on Bach and cellos and suites and for all we knew poised to venture into economic forecasting (he has an MBA), before someone finally went outside and solved the problem.

There was one concert for which Mr. Kay stayed home in New Jersey (yes, it's the New York Chamber Ensemble, but Mr. Kay lives in Bergen County). This was the middle one which featured Robert Wolinsky as harpsichordist and host. The rest of the cast was the "usual suspects": flutist Susan Rotholz, violinists Jolles and Andrea Schultz, violist Ah Ling Neu, and cellist Bailen. The theme was "Fairest Isle" which of course promised in its title music from England. This in turn, it being a baroque concert, promised a deserved and quite welcome massive dose of Purcell and his contemporary Matthew Locke.

It would be overkill to comment on each piece, since we heard all of the incidental music to Purcell's The Færie Queene (neither fully Shakespeare nor Spenser), as well as music by Locke and Handel in an evening which, what with Wolinsky's spoken program notes and much music, lasted two and a half hours.

It must be said that the instrumental playing was on modern instruments, yet it was played with perhaps the most "informed" sensibility I have as yet heard. Had I not known that these were the players' usual instruments I would have guessed - nay, stated flat out and been incorrect - that this was an early music group using unaltered instriments. Ms. Rotholz even contrived to produce the sound of a sopranino recorder on her modern piccolo!

Wolinsky and the NYCE gave full value to the astonishing unprepared dissonances and surprising resolutions in the Locke and Purcell music. One could not discount the influence of the late Italian madrigalists (Gesualdo in particular), who not all that long before had concocted striking music from the same materials.

Yet if one was put in mind of another composer, it was Praetorius. For this music danced like his and had many of the same sonorities (though the NYCE simply had nothing to equal a crumhorn and didn't even try!).

Soprano Leena Chopra was certainly not of the Anonymous 4 (R.I.P.) persuasion of early music singing. I for one would have appreciated a little less vibrato and a bit more support. Her printed credentials did not lead one to believe that she was an early music specialist, nor did her performance of Purcell change my mind. She was much more successful in her Handel series from L'Allegro, il Pensieroso ed il Moderato. Here her voice was more stylistically appropriate, though she suffered from "soprano-itis," a disorder which has little to do with the period of the music and everything to do with not supplying crisp consonants, especially in the upper register.

Though one could not help but be impressed with Rotholz's playing of Handel's C major Sonata for flute and *continuo, it was Bailen's cello playing that left an equal impression. The bass line is clearly not intended for cello but for the viola da gamba, an instrument with more high strings and therefore a much higher range. Yet he time and again went into *thumb positions and nailed all those upper pitches accurately. The *Trio Sonata for flute, violin, and continuo was excellently rendered Handel: clear counterpoint resting upon expressive though not exotic harmony.

Orchestral Concerts

Certainly the largest distance from Cape May's Victorian ethos was New Jersey composer Raymond Wojcik's Cape May Reflections II - "The Art Spirit". This was, after all, the premiere performance of six brief movements connected to the area by being based on the paintings of various Cape May students.

Wojcik writes: "It is my second suite for the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts "Sight and Sounds" project and the Bay-Atlantic Symphony. "Sights and Sounds" brings music and abstract art together by collecting student paintings, distributing them to other schools, and then bringing the paintings and the responses to the paintings to a composer who, in turn, writes music based upon the students' work and input. "The Art Spirit" draws its subtitle from the book of the same name by American painter and educator Robert Henri."

As noted in an earlier issue, Wojcik took the same idea into Westfield High School, where he is orchestra and wind ensemble director, and had art students in the school give paintings to student composers, who then produced chamber music scores which were played by student ensembles in a school assembly.

There are several vivid musical images in the 20 minute-plus work. One cannot forget the viola solo in the sad waltz which is "The Old Woman in the Window" with its ghostly conclusion. Nor could one suppress a smile when the "hip-hop" rhythms driving "Les Demoiselles de Wildwood" (a visual send up of Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon) support a learnéd fughetta, the antithesis of hip-hop.

Jazz references abound in "House Party" while at the other end of the spectrum one senses the presence of late Mahler's in "From Darkness to Light: Mystery." But the happy, jazzy Wojcik reemerged at the conclusion with "Celia's Birthday Party," named not by kids but after his own newborn daughter. The painting seems to be filled with confetti and other happy objects. An *idée fixe representing "The Art Spirit" occurs in the score, but this is no Berlioz/Wagner exercise. It is a spirited and multifaceted score growing from the many moods of children.

There was a PowerPoint presentation that went with the performance projected on a screen next to the stage. Finally someone actually used the technique to good effect, something well beyond mere "bullet points" during a lecture. Here we saw the paintings and details from them as they were expressed in the music. We saw a prism and its splitting of light into the refactions of the rainbow as a visual representation of "The Art Spirit." In short, the visual element was finally truly integrated into a live performance so that it was anything but random or related but ill-timed. This was the way visual and live musical presentations should always be done. Bravo!

Cape May Reflections II may not have been Victorian or even close in period, but audience member Corbin Cogswell pointed out during intermission that it fit right in with the Victorian era's fascination with scientific and technical invention. He suggested that no one would have loved seeing such a blending of art and technical accomplishment more than a Victorian.

The remaining works for the summer:

Violinist Chee-Yun's playing of Lalo's Symphonie espagnole. She produced an enormous sound from her instrument in a performance which was in the best sense calculated and also in the best sense seductive. She seemed to be in love with the rich sound on her G string, often shifting higher on it rather than dropping into a lower position on a higher string. The whole was absolutely masterful, and the audience let her know in no uncertain terms that they recognized it as such.

Jed Gaylin led the Bay-Atlantic forces in a lively performance of selections from Bizet's L'Arlesienne. The horns in the "Carillon" created the bell-illusion. The saxophone solo by David Stambler was first-rate. And the energy of the final Farandole brought the audience to its feet.

The Eroica Trio (including New Jerseyan Erika Nickrenz, pianist) gave a sparkling and visually engaging performance of Beethoven's Triple Concerto. The three players have solved the inherent problem of the work: that the three original players were of different abilities - the cellist the virtuoso, the violinist on the high end but not a virtuoso, and the pianist, the Archduke Rudolph who commissioned the piece, a decent enough intermediate.

The Eroica players, with really nothing else to program with an orchestra, have found a fine place to be with this work. They enjoy it for its own virtues without comparing it to any other works by Beethoven next to which it might pale. But more than that, they clearly enjoy each other, even after all these times playing the piece. The smiles are not pasted on. In fact, at an after-concert gathering they were just a bubbly in person as they are on stage. In their chamber music recitals they, of course, all get to shine equally. But here it has to be Sara Sant'Ambrogio who does the oooh-aaaah acrobatics, and she certainly pulled them off. Not far behind was violinist Adela Peña whose incisive attacks and clean *passage work provided the solidity of purpose one more often finds in the piano. But of course it was pianist Nickrenz who had the interesting job of making the Archduke's music sound as if it were for Beethoven himself. This was accomplished through sparkling scales played with a Mozartean touch. If the cello storms the Beethoven heavens, Ms. Nickrenz delighted by keeping the piano in a smilingly *galant world.

The final of the three versions of Jean Sibelius's Symphony no. 5 in E-flat calls for all players to be in fine shape, but none more so than the horns. And the Bay-Atlantic horns were ready! Almost anything within reason, good or bad, can happen in the performance of the first two movements, but if the horns can play their clarion calls and the rest of the orchestra soar when it is their turn to play the nobly leaping melody, then the piece is saved. Of course the reverse is true, but matters not in this case, for the horns nailed it!

The fact is that all three movements were in fine shape. Conductor Gaylin paced the whole work with tempi which made sense as a narrative of sorts, though there is no text associated with the music. Of course, during the NJSO's Northern Lights Festival one Finnish musician commented that every Finnish composer's music has to do with the Kalevala no matter what the piece. Anyway, Sibelius fans went away happy.

Flutist Susan Rotholz was this year's soloist from the ranks of the NYCE. Last year was her husband Eliot Bailen's turn, so it was a good chance to see how much their kids had grown since last season. She played Mozart's Flute Concerto no. 1 in G major so fluidly and with such tonal support that the modern listener cannot grasp just why Mozart allegedly claimed to hate the instrument. This was no student reading of a piece so often delegated to such; it was a fully vibrant and adult version with full sound, sparkling technique, tonguing to envy, and above all a musical conception from beginning to end. Though Mozart did not hand out the same level of finger virtuosity Rotholz often employs on Tuesdays in Cape May, when the fast passages were played with such sureness it was no effort to figure out that there was a lot more technique lying in wait for more demanding works.

The orchestra played with the right level of transparency and buoyancy. Gaylin showed again that he is a fine accompanist, not only in creating synchronized entrances but in finding effective balances.

Both the noble Symphony no. 39 in E-flat major with its Masonic overtones and the Overture to Don Giovanni with its grim D minor opening proved to be fine works for the Bay-Atlantic to take on. Both have dramatic scope, though different from each other. Both have direction, even the four movement symphony, which in Gaylin's hands leads the music forward. Of course the Overture is always less satisfying because of its concert ending which aborts the ongoing drama hours before the dramatic opening returns in the penultimate scene. But this was Mozart of elegance and soul.

Beethoven's Piano Concerto no. 1 (actually composed second, but published first), found a brilliant advocate in Adam Neiman. Again, this is a piece often assayed by teens or even precocious pre-teens. But Neiman was not about the simple act of getting the notes out; he was about adult expression. This was anything but a student run through. Even in the major chord passage work there was a sense of brooding, while in the happiest sections there was a tragic sense of life bringing a mood of "in spite of" to the stage.

So instead of a jolly performance in which we could happily wile away a half-hour with young Beethoven, Neiman gave us a glimpse into the giant to be, the philosopher who used tones instead of words to break open the neat verities of the Enlightenment. The audience instantly cheered and stood in appreciation.

The season concluded with Brahms Symphony no. 1, right in the middle of the Victorian period in England and America, Here was the fruition of the Beethoven Piano Concerto no. 1. The final satisfying conclusion rested upon the tragedic ethos played out earlier. Here again Gaylin showed his mettle as a man with the long vision of a work, even though he obviously does detailed work throughout.

The horn 1 and 3 and flute solos (thanks to Gaylin for having horn 3 stand at the end; so many only bring up horn 1) were excellently played. Somehow the sense of sublime space evoked in those solos was present more than usual in a hall from which one can exit and look out upon the boundless ocean. But so were the clarinet solos excellent.

One wishes that the string intonation were more consistent. I'd chalk it up to the heat and humidity if the players were increasingly and always out of tune, but that isn't the case. There are simply places where these players have to begin really listening to each other.

---

Return to CNJS Home Page | Return to Reviews Table of Contents