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“Salon” music
Up close and personal with a marimba
Friday, November 18, 2006
By John Hammel
Double Percussion: Greg Giannascoli (marimba), Steve Ryan (piano). Salon 33, Princeton.
Rob Tannen, the owner of “Salon 33,” does a wonderful thing.He opens his house up once a month for performances of world class music providing an atmosphere of sophisticated conviviality along with high art and dinner!
Mr. Tannen has been doing this for over six years and it is one of the best kept secrets in New Jersey.Word is spread by word of mouth, the internet, via phone, and — in some rare instances of intractable aversion to 21st century technology — via snail mail.Mr. Tannen has a living/drawing room where the performances take place large enough to accomodate over 40 people.
He puts up a large basket or pot with a sign suggesting a contribution of only $10.00 and gives all of the money to the artists.
He asks his guests to bring a pot luck dinner or dessert item.The evening begins at 7 and for an hour folks gather in the dining room and throughout the house conversing and eating buffet style all the while making new friends or cementing recent acquaintances.The host informs the guests when the performance is about to begin and everyone fills up the drawing room. Performances are usually an hour and a half to two hours and there is time for a question and answer session.
On this particular Saturday evening we were treated to some absolutely stunning percussion and piano work from Greg Giannascoli and Steve Ryan. The marimba has a highly interesting and idiosyncratic palette of sound at its disposal.In many ways it’s a busy instrument and one that, due to its percussive characteristics, does not usually find itself though of as a legato instrument.
Mr. Giannascoli, however, not only provided plenty of power and dazzle, but also found his way to the heart of legato in many passages from the works at hand.Most impressive was his *bel canto rendering of sections of Ravel’s Tzigane and the *Andante from Bach’s 2nd Sonata for Violin.He displayed a stupendous sense of dynamics, which aided in developing overall sweep and architecture to the pieces.
The most advanced work, in the sense of being entirely modernistic, was Toshi Ichiyanagi’s Paganini Personal, a work that is based on Paganini’s Caprice no. 24,the one which has inspired myriad composers to use it as a starting point for musical expansions and extrapolations.It is not only a showcase for marimba but for the pianist as well, serving more as a work for equals than as a solo spotlight.
Ginnascoli and Ryan worked perfectly off of each other supplementing each other’s lines with aplomb and finesse.The work, although stringent in certain aspects, is heightened by very strong melodic content.
David Popper's Hungarian Rhapsody, Op. 68 was written slightly before the turn of the 19th century and is part and parcel of that post-Romantic era. Mr. Popper was himself a cellist of some repute and wrote many works to showcase his own virtuosic talents.This transcription by Mr. Giannascoli was noteworthy for his beautiful glissandos and use of the full range of his instrument.
Another Giannacoli transcription was that of Ravel's Tzigane, written for the Hungarian violin prodigy Jelly d'Aranyi.The work has strong elements of gypsy flavor, as Ravel mined that genre for this composition.The duo's performance came off as invigoratingly effervescent, and Giannascoli and Ryan complemented each other perfectly, each bringing appropriate fire and passion to fruition.
The rest of the program was an offering of popular and frothy bon bon's.
Chopin's “Minute Waltz” was given a suitably rapid-fire workout but without losing any of the sensitivity or depth of emotion that is inherent in all of Chopin's piano music.
Rimsky Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee is a febrile orchestral interlude with a nearly incessant array of breathtaking chromatic sixteenth notes. The challenge for the musicians is the ability to articulate these notes with the requisite precision.Not to fear, as Giannascoli easily traversed the body of his instrument and made it sing. Nearly every instrument has been tempted to tackle this demon of virtuosic technique including bass, trombone and even the pop artist Barry Manilow who once played it on kazoo with a symphony orchestra.Mr. Giannascoli and Mr. Ryan's stupendous rendition brought down the house.
How does one top Rimsky's short masterpiece?Well, by literally bringing on the bells and whistles.Mr. Giannascoli opened up a music stand and proceeded to lay out an array of different small whistles and even a duck call.In front of his marimba he placed a single small cymbal on a stand from which hung a cowbell and commenced to dazzle the audience with Joe Greene's Xylophonia.This work is another turn of the 19th century crowd pleaser that, although influenced by the then current ragtime craze, was written when Greene was a member of John Philip Sousa's band.Giannascoli reveled in the work's novelty adding elements of his own, such as that whacky duck call, train and fire engine whistles and even a couple of thumps on the cow bell.It was all great, good fun.
Giannascoli and Ryan ended the evening with a performance of the Xavier Cugat classic Tico Tico that Giannascoli informed the audience he had played many times with the Cugat orchestra.It is deservedly a marimba classic and was carried off with élan and appropriate flair. Indeed, at the request of an audience member, it was reprised as an encore.
Giannascoli talked to the audience throughout the evening, regaling us with tidbits of information that were both highly informative and entertaining.At the conclusion of the concert he gave a blow-by-blow demonstration of his instrument, and how it works.Even to the point of taking pieces of the marimba apart to show us the baffling that is utilized to produce it's sounds and dynamics.
Ryan was an involved and apt accompanist and a full artistic equal, imbuing his playing with energy and wit but never once overshadowing the featured instrument or instrumentalist.
Upcoming concerts at Mr. Tannen's residence are flutist Veronica Mascaro on Saturday December 9th at 7 P.M, and “Bach to Britten,” music for piano, piano four hands, and organ, featuring Dick Swain and Tim Brown.Reservations and information can be attained by contacting Mr. Tannen at 609-924-7955 or berrot@aol.com.