Category Archives: Classical

BachFest Freshens Its Mix and Ensemble in a Lively Music @ St. Alban’s Concert

By Perry Tannenbaum

September 13, 2015, Davidson, NC – Neither of the BachFests that I’d attended previously at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, in 2010 and 2011, suggested that program selections hewed religiously to a settled format or exclusively to works that emerged from the prolific Johann Sebastian and his family. Composers and instrumental mixes varied nicely within each of the two concerts, with a noticeably different look in successive years. Yet I still found myself surprised by how different BachFest X was from those I’d attended before.

There were no violins or wind instruments to be seen throughout the 2015 concert, and aside from the Music @ St. Alban’s artistic director, cellist Barbara Blaker Krumdieck, no familiar faces. Nicolas Haigh played the only other instrument I’d seen at a previous BachFest, a harpsichord. The theorbo played – and punctiliously tuned – by Williams Simms was similar to the archlute that made a tantalizing appearance at the 2011 fest, but this baroque instrument was more massive in size, more robust in sound, and more in the spotlight over the course of the afternoon.

All of these musicians took turns as featured soloists, and so did the vocalists who rounded out the ensemble, mezzo soprano Tamsin Simmill and the harpsichordist’s spouse, soprano Margaret Carpenter Haigh. The vocalists made the biggest difference for me between this BachFest and those I’d reported on before, not only dominating the selections performed by the full ensemble but also making them the most festive.

Kicking off the fest, Krumdieck led the group through the audience down the center aisle, and they all jumped into Barbara Strozzi’s “Merci di voi” when they reached the chancel. Singing at the opposite end of the ensemble from the mezzo, Haigh had more of the ornamentation than Simmill and, when the vocal passages echoed or overlapped one another, it was usually Haigh who led the duo into them. The duet, from the composer’s First Book of Madrigals (1644), had a pleasing arc, starting at a loping andante pace, speeding up briefly before luxuriantly subsiding. Neither of the vocalists had any difficulties with the challenges of the work – an excellent harbinger, since there were six more pairs of quotation marks in the program booklet.

Simmill took on the first of these, Purcell’s “Music for a While,” after a beguiling intro from Simms on the theorbo. The choice suited the mezzo well with its veiled references to snakes, Alecto (one of the three avenging Furies in Greek mythology) and her whip, part of Purcell’s incidental music for the adaptation of Oedipus Rex (1679) by John Dryden and Nathaniel Lee. Performing with reading glasses and a minimum of gesture or facial expression, Simmill seemed altogether acclimated to the concert stage.

Notwithstanding her many concert, consort, and recording credits, Haight sang Purcell’s “If Music Be the Food of Love” as if she were a moonlighting opera diva, making no effort to suppress her acting urges. Even without any elaborate contextualizing from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the situation and emotions soon came through vividly in Haight’s performance. Haight’s long, velvety vowels at the start of her song created a languid intimacy, and the quickening of her pace brought on a heightening of the excitement.

The contrast between Simmill’s and Haight’s styles was most interesting – and effective – when they took on key roles from Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea (1642), with Simmill as the Emperor Nero and Haight as his newly crowned Empress, the title character, in their climactic “Pur ti Miro” duet. This blissful duet drew the most attractive singing that I heard from Simmill all afternoon and the sweetest vocal harmonies, more like the concord you might expect in the boudoir some hours after Poppea’s coronation.

Sticking with Monteverdi, Haight performed a solo madrigal, “Si Dolce e’l Tormento” (1614) that acquired a duet-like flavor with a couple of prolonged interjections from the theorbo, lovingly played by Simms. There was a little more bite to Haigh’s Italian here, a clear signal that she was also having a good time. But the most rousing ensemble of the afternoon occurred when Simms switched to baroque guitar for “Zefiro Torna,” a gem plucked from Monteverdi’s posthumous Ninth Book of Madrigals (1651). His strumming took on a percussive edge that swept the two vocalists into a fandango fever.

With Oedipus, Shakespeare, and an adulterous Emperor on hand, we could be tempted to forget we were in a church until the closing ensemble, “Wir eilen mit schwachen” from Bach’s Cantata No. 78 (1724). Krumdieck had her best moments here as an accompanist, but the festivity clearly emanated from the vocalists, with delicious harmonies that were eclipsed only by the duet’s contrapuntal delights. Yet neither Bach nor Krumdieck was overlooked before we reached this giddy, worshipful finale.

Two formidable Bach solos came from the instrumentalists, beginning with a surprise from Haigh, who was listed on the program as a harpsichordist only. Instead of playing the Sinfonia from Bach’s Partita No. 2 (1726) on that instrument, he retired to the far wall where he sat down at the church organ. It’s not the mightiest I’ve heard, but Haigh was able to give the dense opening some real ferocity. Then in the more nimble midsection, Haigh chose a softer voicing from the St. Alban’s organ so that it stood apart in soothing mentholated relief. The conclusion was no less impressive when Haigh maintained the accelerated tempo while returning to the organ’s more robust timbre, for here there were some knotty fugal passages, and the organist controlled both hands (and strands) beautifully.

Krumdieck ventured boldly where so many of the world’s great cellists have left their imprint, giving us the four last movements of Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 1 (1717), which became lovelier with each movement, reaching its zenith in Menuet 1 & 2. Slightly quickening the pace of the Sarabande so that we arrived at a medium tempo, Krumdieck graced these movements with more control and admirable lightness – exactly the word that Rostropovich used to describe the entire suite.

Simms could have wandered almost as extensively through works that Bach wrote for unaccompanied lute, but he chose more exotic terrain, playing a D Major suite by Robert de Visee for theorbo (1716). Reaching the fourth of the six pieces that he played, a Sarabande, the music began to transcend divertimento status and acquire some truly engaging lyricism. The Chaconne des Harlequins had even more zest while retaining some of the Sarabande’s quiet dignity. Simms smartly inserted the Chaconne before the Gigue instead of after. By doing so, Simms crafted a performance of the suite that ramped up continuously in liveliness and invention, ending merrily in 3/4 time.

The Charlotte Symphony Plays a Joyous Concert of Copland, Shostakovich, and Haydn

December 23, 2015Classicalperryt77

Performed by CSO (Christopher Warren-Green, conductor); Lukas Vondracek, piano; John Parker, trumpet

By Perry Tannenbaum

November 6, 2015 – Charlotte, NC: One of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra‘s signature moments happened the last time they performed Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring at Belk Theater, in 2009. Acknowledging the cheers and doling out the bows, guest conductor Larry Rachleff did something I’d never seen before and haven’t seen since. He proceeded to stride over toward concertmaster Calin Lupanu’s music stand, where he grabbled the score and lifted it high in the air for our approval. (For me, this tributary gesture held extra meaning because the previous CSO performance of Appalachian Spring I’d attended – in 1993 – was among the most wretched and lifeless I had ever heard from the ensemble.) Rachleff’s gesture took on a triumphant aspect, as if the orchestra had reached a previously unattainable mountaintop.

Six years later, with music director Christopher Warren-Green on the podium, the orchestra seemed even more securely perched at that summit as it reprised Copland’s ballet suite. That impression wasn’t diminished as we moved deeper into the concert with Shostakovich’s Concerto for Piano and Trumpet, with CSO principal trumpeter John Parker joining guest soloist Lukáš Vondráček downstage. After intermission, Warren-Green demonstrated his affinity with Haydn’s “London” Symphony No. 104.

While it might be profitable to ask what Warren-Green has learned from conducting an American orchestra when exploring the folksier and jazzier moments of Copland’s suite, the Britisher has certainly had much to impart to Charlotte’s musicians in the hushed vernal and sacred sections. Woodwinds were beautifully integrated in the dawn-like introduction, with poignant spots from Hollis Ulaky‘s oboe, Amy Orsinger Whitehead‘s flute, Eugene Kavadlo‘s clarinet, and Joshua Hood’s bassoon gilding the music.

Jumping into the next section with revivalist zest, the brass gave the ensuing religious episode a forceful dramatic thrust. Expectancy was built up far more gradually for the onset of the big “Simple Gifts” tune, the violins communing poignantly with the piano, Ulaky’s oboe standing out from a thicket of woodwinds, and Kavadlo modestly singing out the Shaker hymn on the clarinet. Then after the kind of hushed pause I’d imagine precedes an earthquake, the whole orchestra, aspiring to the full majesty of Appalachia, chimed in. Kavadlo and Whitehead keyed the ethereal aftermath, capped by an exquisite plink from harpist Andrea Hamm, who had distinguished herself in far more demanding passages earlier on.

Off the beaten path of orchestral repertoire, the Shostakovich concerto – with string orchestra only – had never been presented at Belk Theater before, its first and only previous appearance having been on a CSO program 27 years ago. It isn’t for a pianist who prefers to ease his or her way into the most intense passages, yet Vondráček was noticeably more eager than Martha Argerich to plunge into a manic fever. He and Warren-Green took a more lurching path into the opening Allegro moderato than Argerich in her DGG recording, which has little of the sweetness to be found in her Warner version. Really, Vondráček and Warren-Green seemed to extract the best of both interpretations, the éclat of the DGG and its balance between the soloists conjoined with the more satisfying coherence of the Warner.

Counterbalancing Vondráček’s jagged modernism, Parker was a poised and comparatively traditional interlocutor. The two soloists sounded far more simpatico in the Lento movement after the violins floated over the strings, Parker adding a mute to his instrument as Vondráček made his entrance with exquisite old-school delicacy and gradually built to rhapsodic lyricism. Parker wasn’t in evidence in the interstitial Moderato, which is a ruminative keyboard solo leading to a more florid exchange between the strings and the piano, but he played a leading role in the comically festive Allegro con brio. Shostakovich rummages among various melodies for the trumpet, including a quote from the folksy “Poor Jenny,” and Parker played them all as if they were stolen from a Spanish village. Meanwhile Vondráček was no less attuned to the humor of the score, clanking extremely high on the keyboard’s treble and reveling in the quirky, raggy chromaticism.

Congratulating us first on laughing at the funny parts of the Shostakovich, Warren-Green made a point of telling us that London wasn’t merely the place where Haydn wrote his Symphony No. 104, for the city is boisterously embodied in the music, not greatly different from the London of today. The first violins were very sweet, answering the violas and second violins in the Adagio intro, joining in a sprightly leap into the Allegro, and justifying Warren-Green’s intimation that we would be hearing street cries. Trumpets, winds, and Leonardo Soto‘s timpani added to the vitality. Soto played a key role again in the Andante when the small-scale early passages, with their simple bass line from the cellos and contrabasses, abruptly veered into dignity and grandeur.

The stop-and-go of the Menuet probably makes it the most memorable movement of this symphony. Whitehead’s flute and Hood’s bassoon stood out in the winds’ frolicking leading up to that familiar episode, and when we reached the moment where Haydn begins to fracture the 3/4 tempo, the orchestra ably captured Papa’s warmth, humor, and charm. Haydn’s Finale to his entire mammoth symphonic output may have the biggest sound of any movement he ever wrote, as richly festive as anything you’ll find in Beethoven’s “Pastoral.” The CSO’s violins had a particularly Londonesque edge here, but Warren-Green has also meticulously sculpted the dynamic contrasts and tempo changes for maximum visceral effect, while Soto delivered his concluding bombs with pinpoint accuracy.

Charlotte Symphony’s Take on Mahler Tips Towards Joy

By Perry Tannenbaum

November 6, 2015 – Charlotte, NC: With an opening funeral march and a brassy, jubilant conclusion, it’s hard to mistake the arc of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, but the way each orchestra and each maestro will make this arc sound, over the course of more than an hour, largely depends on how extremely they render those two extremes – from C-sharp minor as we begin to D major as we conclude. As the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra‘s program notes indicate, Mahler’s biography suggests an unusually wide latitude, for this symphony was begun after he had nearly died at a 1901 performance conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. It was completed in 1903, after he had met and married Alma, so this work represents a pivotal moment in the composer’s life and career, and the fourth movement, Adagietto, especially, is widely regarded as his love letter to Alma, the work’s dedicatee.

The first movement has at times sounded deeply lugubrious, almost as desolate as Shostakovich’s wartime ruminations, while the final Allegro can be driven to a joyous frenzy comparable to Beethoven. Since the Charlotte Symphony and artistic director Christopher Warren-Green have powerfully presented Beethoven’s Seventh and Shostakovich’s Concerto for Piano and Trumpet already this season, it would be interesting to see how far they would go toward these extremes of delight and despair. And since the CSO hadn’t performed Mahler’s powerhouse at Belk Theater in over 21 years, it was anybody’s guess.

Warren-Green’s zest for Beethoven, extended by his orchestra in his absence just a couple of weeks ago with a vivid showing in Fidelio under the baton of James Meena, proved to be the most reliable barometer. In the presence of principal trumpeter John Parker‘s majestic flourishes launching the Funeral March, I couldn’t bring myself to mourn the absence of a funereal mood. The outbreak by the full brass corps was thrilling and, while the winds were bittersweet, there was a slight hint of klezmer in their gait. Only the strings could manage what I’d call a lament, but even they were sweetly lyrical.

Softening the solemnities that Leonard Bernstein found in the March, Warren-Green left us free to imagine the ensuing Stürmisch bewegt (violently agitated) movement as taking us deeper into anger and despair. The turbulence here is as dark and flavorful as any music that has emerged from Eastern Europe, yet there are intervening calms between the great storms where the cellos are the chief mellowing agent, and the glint of a lone triangle peeps through the roar of the trumpets. So if things are indeed darker in this second movement, we’re moving decisively into the light by the end, with some unmistakably romantic lyricism from the violins. It was not a continuous movement toward the light, for the final outburst from the brass and drums almost drowned out the triangle, which kept tolling with renewed optimism through the concluding calm.

If Warren-Green avoided the constraints of a programmatic reading of Part 1, he readily embraced the youthful playfulness of the Scherzo that comprises Part 2. I’ve read about performances where the principal French horn actually comes upstage for his big moments, and that maneuver certainly wouldn’t have been inappropriate here, except for the fact that Frank Portone‘s artistry and virtuosity didn’t decisively eclipse the glory that Parker brought forth in the previous movements. Portone’s breaths did become noticeably longer than any we had heard before, but what set the French horn’s exclamations apart were their unmistakable affinity to the famed call that Wagner wrote for his heroic Siegfried and the signature outcries Strauss wrote for various orchestral protagonists, especially Till Eulenspiegel.

There were other eccentricities to savor in this romp, including the section where we paused for a pizzicato quartet from the string principals. Percussion also became a little outré, and there was an agreeably Russian sloppiness to the brass when we reached the episode for the woodblocks. More startling than that – at least visually – were the postures of oboists Eric Cice and principal Hollis Ulaky. Instead of the usual downward gaze and concentration, like Olympic divers on top of a high platform before the moment of truth, Ulaky and Cice had their instruments tilted upwards toward the balcony. Look quickly and you’ll also see Joshua Hood stuffing a cute mute into his bassoon, not as comical as outfitting a tuba with its clown hat but far more rare.

After all the brassy fanfares and all the woodwind frolicking and eccentricity, the arrival of Part 3, with the ethereal Adagietto, was most striking for stripping away all the previous frippery and artillery. Only the strings, violins foremost, and harpist Andrea Mumm were intimately playing here. Without burdening the music with any sacramental gravity – Bernstein selected this movement, after all, for RFK’s funeral – Warren-Green made a compelling case for a quicker pace and for keeping the sweet harmonies aloft. So yes, Warren-Green also took a far sunnier view of the Finale. Portone, Hood, principal bassoonist Mary Beth Griglak, and principal clarinetist Eugene Kavadlo all contributed to the chirruping crossfire at the outset. Oboes and French horns soared over the merriment of the strings as we reached the midsection, definitely evoking the pastoral Beethoven for me. Nor were there any lingering clouds to mar the jubilation of the final onslaught of the brass, with a full complement of five percussionists as we reached a triumphant conclusion. That tireless little triangle lurked blissfully among the high spirits.