Garret Lakes Arts Festival
Resting on Solid Rhythm
The Disintegration of Time
Saturday, August 20, 2005
By Paul M. SomersGarret Lakes Arts Festival and Sprenger-Lang Foundation present Music on the Mountain: Deep Creek Symphony, David Wroe (conductor), Anton Miller and Sandra Wolf-Meei Cameron (violins). J. S. Bach: Concerto for Two Violins and Strings, BWV 1043; Bohuslav Martinu: Toccata e due canzoni, H. 311; Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring Suite. Garrett College, McHenry.
There was only one topic of musical conversation after the opening concert of the Garrett Lakes Arts Festival's 2005 Music on the Mountain. Not only the musicians but audience members were talking about the power of Bohuslav Martinu's Toccata e due canzoni (which is to say, "brilliant finger work and two songs"). It is a work composed in 1946, not long after the conclusion of World War II. In it Martinu takes the sounds of a clock tower - its motoric mechanism, its chimes, and the repetitive short melodies of a carillon - and turns them into a metaphor for living through the war.
He himself had escaped Europe (he was already 49 years old when actual hostilities broke out) and come to America, where he taught at Princeton University. So his experience was of time passing while the future of
Western Civilization hung in the balance far away. The music is like an account of his dreams about time in the midst of war.His time metaphor came naturally, since he was born in the clock tower attached to St. John's church in Policka near the border of Bohemia and Moravia in what is now the Czech Republic. Clock towers typically were used as firewatch towers so an alarm could be rung immediately. His early memories were of bells, the omnipresent ticking and whirring of the clock and its chimes, and of course of alarm bells when fire broke out.
Now, having seen Western Civilization survive, he drew upon this early memory to create a "Toccata" filled with repetitive mechanistic drive. Even when he indulged in his penchant for beautiful melodies, they were always supported by driven accompaniments like a maniacal clock at the heart of a world going mad.
So repetitive are his motives that one wag suggested that this piece was "Nixon in Czechoslovakia", a reference to John Adams' much later opera Nixon in China which is also filled with repetitive motives.
The first of the two "songs" (not really songs in the purest sense, since there is no vocal part) brings in chimes and carillon bells, both provided initially by the piano, but subsequently taken up and developed by the others. Even in this lyrical movement the steady tick of a clock is present.
The second "song" begins with bells in the piano, but now strident tone clusters. It is in this final movement that we witness the disintegration of time. The mechanistic driving force begins to lose its way, the various forces on stage fall out of synchronism until the mechanism has totally failed. We are left with long, seemingly ametric sustained tones in the violins. Finally the timpanist begins steady beats restoring time; history can continue. The piece ends with a triumphant major chord. Western civilization is saved.
This extraordinary piece was given a performance of gripping emotional impact which was a demonstration of how music is so much more than just playing what is written on the page. The obsessive-compulsive drive of the mechanistic passages came to life because the players looked not only to conductor David Wroe for leadership, but also to each other as if they were in an intimate chamber ensemble. To watch the eyes of the players was to understand how the performance process works, for there was almost constant eye movement from the page to the conductor to section leaders and back.
Pianist Shuang Guo-Wroe rightly received a solo bow, for her playing was exemplary. James Jeter's bassoon solo was also expressive, carrying within it the sound of a lone voice in the midst of insanity.
The conclusion of the work brought cheers and many bows for conductor Wroe as well as bows for all the wind and percussion players.
The concert concluded with the chamber suite version of Aaron Copland's most famous work, Appalachian Spring. The three wind players must be mentioned by name immediately: not only bassoonist Jeter, but flutist Sato Moughalian and clarinetist William Shadel brought to the evocation of rural America a woody, even earthy sound - not crude, but lyric in an almost folksy manner. Theirs was sophisticated playing with the uintessential sounds of their instruments, yet even the most difficult passages rested on a simplicity of delivery which set the tone for the performance.
Again Ms. Guo-Wroe, whose piano part is quite integral, was effective. Mr. Wroe's ear for color found the shift of a line from piano to clarinet almost indiscernible as he brought both players to a softness in which their individual qualities were blurred and the transition was seamless. His tempi were absolutely on the mark and his pacing of the variations on "Simple Gifts" could not be bettered.
The concert began with concertmaster Anton Miller and western Maryland's own Sandra Wolf-Meei Cameron (a Juilliard student) playing J. S. Bach's famous "Double Concerto" for two violins. Again eye contact was the coin of the realm. There were several times when Mr. Wroe turned on the podium so the orchestra was behind him in order to become the apex of a communication triangle with the two soloists.
With ensemble matters so well in hand, the music was allowed unfettered expressivity. Rather than have the two soloists act as mirrors of each other, it was quite effective to allow each to reveal his or her personality: Miller was sweet and Cameron lush; there was never any doubt as to who was playing what. All concerned produced very exact and well defined articulations which supplied the rhythmic underpinning to not only this work, but, as it turned out, to the entire concert.
At the end of the "Bach Double" there were cheers and a goodly number of listeners stood in appreciation of the fine artistry they had just heard. Ms. Cameron needs to lose the incessantly bobbing ponytail. It is a visual distraction. And anyway, she's now 19 and playing serious music, not 14 and playing the role of cute prodigy.
Light Classics Under the Stars
An Intergenerational Event
Sunday, August 21, 2005
By Paul M. SomersGarret Lakes Arts Festival and Sprenger-Lang Foundation present Music on the Mountain: Deep Creek Symphony, David Wroe (conductor). Pops concert. On the slope behind WISP Lodge, McHenry.
As the guns boomed out over the Deep Creek Valley while Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" came roaring off the outdoors stage, a whole family in the audience set off sparklers and waved them in the air. Most families with small children had drifted toward the higher parts of the slope behind the main lodge at WISP. There the tykes could run around freely, finding golf balls, and shyly approach each other. But by the time the pyrotechnics of all kinds came into play, just before the persimmon moon rose, most of the little ones were asleep, many already in bed at home.
It was a fine night for a family pops concert. The heat was gone, the breeze had dissipated into stillness, and the Big Dipper hung lazily overhead pointing toward the North Star.
Even while the sun was still hovering over the horizon, the Deep Creek Symphony began its annual pops concert with Mark McGurty's "Salute to Old Broadway" which ranged from "Strike Up the Band" to tunes by Duke Ellington used in Sophisticated Ladies.
This set the technical tone for the evening. The Symphony is, of course, a professional group with musicians from both Pittsburgh and the New York/New Jersey metropolitan areas. So the standard of performance was high. The close miking for amplification gave proof, if any were needed, for individual players were heard more prominently than would ever happen in an unamplified concert. And the unplanned "solos" by non-soloists showed off the depth of technical excellence.
The central portion of the concert celebrated Latin American and Spanish influenced music. Tico-Tico danced along with the dry, brittle sound of maracas in the background. A slow middle section featured concertmaster Anton Miller in a planned solo in which his romantic sound and phrasing were appropriately sentimental.
Five selections from Georges Bizet's opera Carmen were the first classical works of the evening. The "Aragonnaise" featured fine english horn work, as did the subsequent "Intermezzo." But the star of this movement was the fine flutist Sato Moughalian playing the most extended solo of the whole evening.
The audience's recognition was evident when the "Song of the Toreador" appeared in the midst of the "Toreador March." In the march this listener would have appreciated more vigorous cymbal crashes to lead the musical line from the end of one phrase into the next.
But that absence may have been an artifact of the often bizarre balances produced by the sound engineer. After all, we never heard one flute solo adequately all evening, except in the "Intermezzo" where that is all that is happening. But we were "treated" to the sight of conductor David Wroe waving his baton at cellos to open the "Habañera," seeing the cellists playng, and hearing absolutely nothing.
The final "Gypsy Dance," with its swirling colors and increasing frenzy was an exciting closer to the Carmen selections.
Jalousie by Jacob Gade was the final Latin-inspired piece, although the composer was from Denmark. It was by far the most sensuous work on the program, swaying so provocatively as to lead neatly to Mr. Wroe's remarks about the scandalous history of the waltz.
Perhaps giving a nod to Baltimorean H. L. Mencken as a connection to a concert in Maryland, he quoted the great journalist's humorous remarks on the "immorality" of the waltz. He then proceeded to lead Johann Strauss's On the Beautiful Blue Danube, one of his two most famous waltzes (the other being the "Emperor"). Though slightly truncated by taking out a few repeats, it was a lovely conclusion to the "light classics" portion of the concert.
What followed was, of course, the patriotic part. As is his annual wont, Wroe read Emma Lazarus's The New Colossus (including the famous portion beginning "Give me your tired, your poor ...") before playing a most affecting arrangement of God Bless America. Then came that great American favorite, the "1812 Overture." Yes, that war in this country produced the text which eventually became our national anthem. But of course the Overture is by Tchaikovsky and is an evocation of the Russians beating back Napoleon from Moscow. But we have appropriated the music as our own - hey, Tchaikovsky came to America and was the conductor who opened Carnegie Hall, so there is a connection, however tenuous.
But of course the real reason we've taken it over is that it gives us a chance for a rousing good time making a lot of noise with guns, and the Garrett County "militia" did their usual fine job blasting away. That their kids know the "1812" was evident when this writer heard some of them well before the concert singing the correct tune replete with well-timed "bang, bang, boom" explosions.
But Britisher Wroe knew better than to conclude with a Russian piece to celebrate America, so of course we got John Phillip Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever to close the musical portion of the evening. People clapped along and some who had not used up their quotient of sparklers waved them in time with the march.
As the final strain began from the stage, the 180 degree transition to the top of the mountain began as several mortars with golden flitter and loud salutes turned everyone around to the southwest.
The fireworks show was one of wit as well as color and noise. Not only did the pyrotechnic display include the very funny "screaming meemies" (the writer's brother, a professional pyrotechnician in Rochester, NY, says that these are called "screamers" or "banshees") which had the audience laughing as the shells squealed and dodged fitfully around the sky, but there was a great variety of Japanese and Chinese shells mixed in with many two and three tiered color bursts no doubt made by the folks at Maryland's Fireworks Productions themselves.
The show designer's wit took a page from Haydn's use of strategic dramatic silences. This show included at least three late segments which everyone thought must be the finale. There would be a silence as if all was concluded. The audience would applaud. Then a new finale would unexpectedly erupt and build even higher than the previous. At last there was the definitive ending, great applause, and the trek back to the parking lot. The conversations overheard in the dark were all about how fine the evening had been mixed with strangers warning each other not to step in various irregularities on the slope.
There was an unplanned intermission to fix a lighting glitch. But many welcomed it, taking the opportunity to stretch. Those with kids were happy to let them really get all their energy spent as they ran around happily in the gathering dusk.
Served for the First Time
Dry Run Mennonites Respond to a Chamber Ensemble
Wednesday, August 24. 2005
By Paul M. SomersGarrett Lakes Arts Festival (GLAF). Music on the Mountain. Deep Creek Symphony Chamber Ensemble, David Wroe (cond.). Outreach Program. Copland: Appalachian Spring; Saint-Saëns: Carnival of the Animals (excerpts). Dry Run Mennonite Church Hall, Bittinger, MD.
Classical music is generally thought to be an urban/suburban experience. Even when the concert itself may be in a rural area, the attendees are usually escapees leaving the city or 'burb, or are those who can afford to live rurally while never managing to get around to driving a tractor or milking a cow. An "outreach concert" for the "underserved" invariably means playing for inner-city folks, most often kids.
In Garrett County, with nary an urban center in its bounds, the "outreach concert" of the Garrett Lakes Arts Festival was aimed at the underserved farming community. Great care was taken to plan the concert in conjunction with members of the Dry Run Mennonite Church, where the concert was held. On their advice, the time was set for 5:30 pm to give the prospective listeners time to get off the fields and yet not be up so late that a farmer's early rising time would be difficult to achieve. It was expected that few if any of the audience would have heard classical musicians live.
"I'll be pleased if we draw twenty," said Beth Johnson, executive director of GLAF.
When well over fifty listeners appeared, many from the Mennonite farming community, the idea for this rural outreach experience funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, was vindicated.
The musical choices were apt and well-played. Conductor David Wroe spoke to the audience, giving them the verbal material which allowed them to connect to Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring in a way impossible for city folk. A look around at the intergenerational mix sitting rapt as the twelve professional musicians played showed clearly that even if no one there knew the work, they could relate to the music's imagery. Just as importantly, they related to what it took to play it, recognizing excellence even in an endeavor as foreign as music making.
At the end of Appalachian Spring old and young applauded long and hard in appreciation. This is, after all, a score which closes quietly like the last rays of the sun over a field. No adrenalin rush was needed to produce enthusiasm. They "got it" completely.
Of course Camille Saint-Saëns' madcap Carnival of the Animals is the exact opposite. Here a visual, almost slapstick comedy style was in place. Not only did Mr. Wroe read from both Ogden Nash's and Peter Schickele's introductory poems and jokes, each one getting a big laugh, but the players were at times actors, too. Violinists Anton Miller and Yukie Handa made "Personages with Long Ears" (mules) a visual duel with Yukie eventually beating Anton, who went running across the stage to hide behind bassist Vince Carano. The elephantine bass solo by Carano himself galumphed along so differently from the
pizzicato simplicities of hymns or country music, that several folks around me shook their heads in appreciation. Clarinetist William Shadel in playing the same two tones for the "Cuckoo" began by hiding behind some greenery on stage and proceeded to circle the audience ending up off stage. Even though there were no visual shenanigans, "Roosters" got a big laugh from a group more personally acquainted with those creatures than is the average city-dweller. Those who appreciated sheer technique were heard to comment appreciatively on the playing of "Aviary" by flutist Sato Moughalian.
All the players, who took the time to present this concert out of what for the rest of the orchestra was a mid-week day off, were in fine shape, playing as well as if they were on a big stage in a big city. Their efforts were greatly appreciated, shown not only in the enthusiastic applause, but in the remarks of the listeners as they left. Kids were thrilled, but so were their parents and grandparents.
The response of the musicians, no matter what their background now all part of the urban scene, was that they had never played for this kind of audience. And they felt that they had done their best to bring a positive experience to new listeners.
We trust that this particular rural community will not remain "underserved." But it will probably continue to require taking the music to them to make that so. Getting home after 11:00 pm following a regularly scheduled symphony concert simply may not be part of a farmer¹s life when morning comes at 4:30 or even 5:30 am.
Meanwhile, another kind of outreach was being presented by three of the orchestra members: flutist Dilshad Posnock, violinist Jason Posnock, and cellist Alistair MacRae. Fred and Nancy Learey, who hosted Dilshad and Jason, invited some friends over to hear a chamber music recital by the trio, an event which has happened several times over the years. With a flute as part of the ensemble, it enabled them to play the first of Haydn's "London" Trios and one by Franz Danzi. Other music by François Devienne and Jean Rivier (a contemporary of Beethoven) filled out the program. A duo of melodies from Puccini's La boheme was also thrown into the mix.
This kind of informal gathering is just the kind of spontaneous thing that makes a festival thrive. It gives orchestral players a chance to play chamber music. It also gives hosts and guests alike a sense of investment and ownership in the Festival. It is the kind of thing that really can't be planned well in advance, but when it happens it must be praised.
In this case it was partly a musical reunion, for Jason and MacRae had previously been colleagues at Princeton University where they both played in the orchestra (and where this writer long ago wrote a review of Jason as a soloist!). Now the Posnock's live in the Pittsburgh area and MacRae is in the New Jersey/New York area. And here they were, together again in rural western Maryland. Who would have thought it? But that's also part of what festivals are about.
Bravo to the Leareys for hosting the homegrown event and to the trio for going that extra musical mile.
A Platonic Ideal
Beethoven Invents
Friday, August 26, 2005
By Paul M. SomersGarret Lakes Arts Festival and Sprenger-Lang Foundation present Music on the Mountain: Deep Creek Symphony, David Wroe (conductor), Sandra Wolf-Meei Cameron (violin). Johann Strauss, Jr.: On the Beautiful Blue Danube; Bernstein: Serenade (after Plato's Symposium); Beethoven: Symphony no. 4 in B-flat major, op. 60. WISP Lodge, McHenry.
Violinist Sandra Wolf-Meei Cameron, who (thank goodness) answers to "Sandy," took the full measure of Leonard Bernstein's Serenade (after Plato's Symposium) just as surely as it took the full measure of her. It was a love affair, not a battle. Though she understood the music as among the composer's deepest romantic expressions, her performance had about it just the right level of classical restraint to keep Bernstein¹s emotions from going over the top.
She has technique to burn, so the frenetic "Erixymachus" movement was far from a struggle, but was instead a witty scherzo in mood. Ms. Cameron knew better than to try to win a war with the percussion section by making ugly sounds, so she let them eventually take over, just as the composer intended.
The "Agathon"
The intense and eloquently played duet with principal cellist Eliot Bailen provided a musical representation of the Socratic method of dialog. When the disruptive Alcibiades interrupts and co-opts the rest of the piece, Bernstein comes the closest to his Broadway persona. His jazz references found the already quite physical Ms. Cameron dancing in place during a
This brings us to the matter of her hair. Though it was still in pony-tail configuration, she had it spread out in some way which prevented it from bouncing so much. This has been a source of major distraction when she plays, but this time - consciously or not - the hair was not an impediment to the audiences enjoyment. Indeed, this was the most mature performance we have heard from her at Deep Creek or in New Jersey. Brava!
On the face of it David Wroe's penchant for conducting Beethoven's too-rarely-played Symphony no. 4 seems odd. Expectations would suggest one of the monumental odd-numbered symphonies to be a favorite. But Wroe's devotion to the Fourth is no mere quirk of taste; he has grasped the importance of the work in the Beethoven canon and thus conveys such enthusiasm for the music that even jaded players smile while they are playing.
If the composer bursts the bounds of emotional expression in the Symphony no. 3 ("Eroica"), then it is in the Fourth that he reaches new technical frontiers as a composer. One hears Beethoven delving into pure texture as expression and expanding the role of solo color - in short, inventing the way he would use the orchestra for his remaining works.
Wroe is not shy about taking some liberties which are quite apt. The horn call duet at the end of the Scherzo is slowed up to emphasize the drama. Later, where snippets of the melody are tossed from one instrument to another Wroe increasingly slows the music until it winds down to a full stop. Wroe stands there a second as if pondering the fate of the piece, then suddenly finishes the piece at full tempo.
We have seen him lead this work before and gotten a good laugh from this final joke. But in the larger context of this year's GLAF it reminded one of the far more serious destruction and restoration of time in Martinu's Toccata e due canzoni heard in the first concert.
The concert began with a reprise from the pops concert of Johann Strauss's lovely waltz On the Beautiful Blue Danube. Since for whatever reason Mozart's sprightly Overture to The Marriage of Figaro was replaced (there were some groans from the audience), it would have been appropriate to have played the full work with zero cuts. Perhaps in the interest of time, the same trimmed version as at the pops concert was trotted out, but a non-pops concert would have been the time and place to present the whole masterpiece. After all, Wroe already takes expressive
Rousing
Tchaikovsky
Nocturnal
Prokofiev and Sensuous Borodin
Saturday,
August 27, 2005
By Paul M. Somers
Garret Lakes Arts Festival and Sprenger-Lang Foundation present Music on the Mountain: Deep Creek Symphony, David Wroe conductor), GLAF Festival Chorus, Julie Turrentine (dir.); Kotaro Fukuma (piano). Borodin: Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor; Prokofiev: Piano Concerto no. 3 in C major, op. 26; Tchaikovsky: Symphony no. 5 in E minor, op. 64. WISP Lodge, McHenry.
The 2005 Garrett Lakes Arts Festival Music on the Mountain came to a spectacular conclusion with an all-Russian concert on Saturday at the WISP Lodge. Not only was Tchaikovsky's Symphony no. 5 given an instant standing ovation, but as it continued it metamorphosed into European-style rhythmic clapping.
Conductor David Wroe had just led a riveting performance reaching all the emotional highs and lows which mark Tchaikovsky's audience favorite. He immediately acknowledged hornist Ralph Kelly who had played the famous second movement horn solo to perfection. The complete brass section was asked to stand to receive their own share of the applause not only for the lip-wearing final section where they have no let-up, but for their often sensitive work earlier in the symphony.
The whole woodwind section was asked to stand for exemplary playing. Phrasing was committed and pliable, with the long line always of prime importance.
As for the strings, they played with such authority that they could have had twice their numbers and would not have sounded any more precise or lush.
But this performance was but the final statement of an evening which featured Prokofiev's brilliant show-piece Piano Concerto no. 3 played by Kotaro Fukuma. His understated manner as he entered gave no hint at the fireworks he then unleashed. His octaves sparkled and the chordal passages had firmness without banging.
For this listener, however, it was the starry glitter of the nocturnal variations in the second movement which impressed. His recent studies in France and resulting grasp of fine gradations of tone color cast these delicate sections as impressionist musical pictures.
He, too, received an instant standing ovation. Brought back to the stage several times, he finally provided an encore which was unknown to most listeners: a Barcarolle by Anatol Liadov.
That composer had been part of the troika which completed Borodin's opera Prince Igor, the others being Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov.
The famous "Polovtsian Dances" from that opera opened the concert with the GLAF Festival Chorus in fine form as they sang in English translation. Preparing conductor Julie Turrentine had the singers whipped into fine shape; the amplification was more a reflection on the needs of the hall than of their enthusiastic singing. Some felt it would have been helpful to have the text printed since choral diction is always an iffy thing. But the text in this case is not as important as the romantic feel of the massed chorus, so this writer didn't care about the words as much as the open voweled sound produced.
This exciting music is like a film-score before films. The percussion section drove much of the piece in rousing fashion.
It is worth remarking that conductor David Wroe led the Tchaikovsky symphony from memory. Freed of the notes, his leadership was inspiring. The players were smiling, nodding to each other happily when some tough section has been pulled off. As one pleased player put it after the concert, "What he loses in detail he makes up in pure inspiration." Even when using the score, the high level of enthusiasm projected by the conductor infused the whole concert with vivid playing with a wide dynamic range.
Several audience members made a point of telling me that it was the best GLAF concert ever, not just this season.
With that kind of enthusiasm engendered during the directorship of Beth Johnson, the future of the organization under Lucinda Williams should certainly be bright.