Tag Archives: classical

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Joshua Roman’s TownMusic Series Begins with a Trio Treat

Joshua Roman (Photo: Tina Su)

Joshua Roman needs no introduction to Seattle, where he has been the fair-haired darling of classical groupies ever since his appointment as principal cellist for the Seattle Symphony in 2006, a two-year stint which he left to pursue a varied solo career.

However, his appeal to Seattleites, not to mention his fine playing and eclectic musical ideas, inspired Town Hall to engage him to spearhead a new series called TownMusic in 2007.

Now beginning its sixth season, the series of five concerts ranges from the wacky (A Little Nightmare Music, this November) to the intellectually adventurous (violinist Jennifer Koh’s exploration of Bach, his influence on and connection to composers in all genres, next February), to the purely classical as in the opening performance last Tuesday. Roman performs in three of them.

For this concert, Roman, pianist Victor Santiago Asuncion, and violinist Dale Barltrop performed trios by Beethoven and Schubert as well as a recent work by Dan Visconti, a composer whose work Roman has brought here before.

From the first notes of the Beethoven, it was clear that this threesome is of the caliber we’ve come to expect in the UW Series at Meany Hall or at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival. Moreover, Town Hall has the intimacy for chamber music that the size of Meany Theater obviates, and the warm acoustics support the performers as they don’t at Nordstrom Recital Hall.

Barltrop is beginning his fourth season as concertmaster of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and met Roman at the Cleveland Institute of Music where both were studying. Both have been avid players of chamber music, and Barltrop and Asuncion both studied at the University of Maryland.

They are not listed in the program as a named trio. But having heard them, I can hope that they decide to perform together on a regular basis. This concert was part of a short concert tour which began in Memphis and from here headed to Vancouver and then goes to Australia.

Their Beethoven, the early Trio in B-Flat Minor, was a joy. First noticed was Asuncion’s playing, his runs so clean, so light, so expressive, his phrasing so beautifully shaped. But Barltrop’s and Roman’s playing was equally sensitive, all three of them building to climaxes, ratcheting back to sudden softer sections, full of verve and attack but without aggression in an eloquence which held and absorbed the listener.

Their Schubert, the Trio in E-Flat Major, combined thoughtful undercurrents with bubbling charm, somber at one moment, full of excitement here, lightheartedness there. At all times the three played as with one mind, always balanced so that no instrument overwhelmed the others but came to the fore at the appropriate moments.

Visconti’s Lonesome Road, in its Seattle premiere, is an 18-minute work in seven short movements which purports to portray that American vacation standby, the crosscountry roadtrip. Apparently the movements can be played in any order, and for this trip it seemed they were driving in circles. I heard, I thought, something from Tenessee, down to New Orleans with more than a hint of jazz, out to Kansas with one of that state’s huge summer storms, and back to a bit of Kentucky bluegrass, always with the feel of cars whizzing by and fading in the distance: A well-designed, amusing work easy to hear and never becoming boring.

I’d go with keen interest to hear any of these performers again, separately or together as a trio. The audience, a good size for any concert so early in the concert season, seemed to feel likewise, judging by its response.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Stephen Hough “Shines” in Rach 3 with Seattle Symphony

Stephen Hough, pianist

If notes were steps, Stephen Hough would have run—and won—a full marathon playing Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall Thursday night. He’ll do it again three more times this weekend. From the look of Thursday evening’s almost-full hall, tickets are selling briskly.

Made even more famous than it was already by its use in the movie Shine (about the Australian pianist David Helfgott), this concerto is an Everest for performers, loaded with notes to be played at warp speed. Where Hough is unusual is in his ability to add phrasing even when his hands are a blur on the keys.

In the few slower moments, including the lovely theme at the start, he gave an expressive nuance hardly possible the rest of the time. Hough’s playing is extraordinarily clean for such a work, with never a misplaced note, and while his playing is decisive, he never bangs on the keyboard.  In the few moments when he was not playing he mopped the sweat from his brow and wiped the keys with his black handkerchief.

The orchestra under Ludovic Morlot kept pace with him, with fine solos from principals Seth Krimsky, bassoon, and Ben Hausmann, oboe.

Exciting as this performance was, the highlight of the concert came earlier with a superb performance by the orchestra and Morlot of Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 2. We are so used to thinking of Ives as an iconoclast whose music is quirky to a degree, fascinating and challenging to play and to hear, that this symphony written in his mid-to-late 20s comes as a surprise. It is in straightforward symphonic mode, showing the composer’s thorough grasp of European compositional style and of inspired orchestration.

Yes, there are many instances where he has incorporated snatches of popular songs, most familiarly Camptown Races and Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, but this is a time-honored choice of many composers. Only at the very last does Ives present us with a sudden surprise, departing from conventional harmonies to end on a clashingly dissonant chord.

The orchestra played it with freshness and verve under Morlot’s firm but easy guiding hand, bringing out a myriad little details and with notable solos from the horns and principal cello Efe Baltacigil.

The concert began with another, quintessentially American work, Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide. Quite short, it received a vibrant, scintillating performance from Morlot and the orchestra, the conductor almost dancing on the podium and conveying his exuberance to the musicians.

Before the concert bagan, three musicians were honored on their departure from the orchestra. Violinist Jun Liang Du, in the orchestra since 1986, has already left, but second violinist Virginia Hunt Luce, who has played in the orchestra 46 years, received a warm tribute from colleague Sande Gillette, and cellist Susan Williams with 35 years under her belt, was lauded by violist Vincent Comer.

 

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Seattle Pro Musica Rises Above With Bach’s St. John Passion

It’s rare to hear Bach’s St. John Passion, and a joy to hear it well done. Seattle Pro Musica came through in spades Sunday night, the second of two performances at St. James Cathedral. (Their next program arrives May 19 and 20, Resonance: Venetian Masters, also at St. James.)

The 66-member chorus has grown from strength to strength under founding conductor Karen P. Thomas. The group is well worth hearing whatever it is singing, but particularly so when it’s the performance of a big work we don’t often have a chance to hear live.

St. James is not necessarily the best place to hear this, however. The ambiance is right, but the long reverberation of its acoustics made much of the detail somewhat muffled as heard from my seat near the altar in the western part of the cathedral. The choir, orchestra, and soloists performed at the extreme east end just in front of the organ pipes. Runs were fuzzy to the ear, and much of the interweaving lines in orchestra and choir couldn’t be clearly delineated, yet it was not the fault of the singers or musicians.

The two main protagonists in this Passion are the chorus and the Evangelist. Tenor Wesley Rogers told the Passion story with dramatic impact in his many recitatives, his strong, clear voice seemingly effortless to the very end well over two hours later, his high notes clarion and easy.

The choir, furthering the story in the choruses of a steamed-up mob frankly out for vengeance, and commenting in totally different mode in the lovely chorales, sang equally well, expressively, in tune and together.

Charles Robert Stephens used his weighty baritone to good effect in Jesus’ short utterances, while choir member Charles Robert Austin sang Pilate authoritatively with an equally weighty bass.

Pro Musica brought in several other soloists for the arias and ariosos, notably the fine countertenor Joseph Schlesinger, and with nice work from soprano Madeline Bersamina and baritone Jacob William Herbert. Tenor James Brown appeared either to be having an off night or else recovering from an infection. His upper notes sounded weak and stretched, and all his voice unsupported, though he improved somewhat towards the end.

The small orchestra of mostly Baroque instrumentalists maintained good balance with the singers while obbligato passages from oboes, flutes, or violins complemented soloists, and continuo from harpsichord, organ, viola da gamba, and bassoon supported them.

Thomas held it all together. She did a superb job of training the choir and shaping the choruses and chorales, balancing the orchestra, and pacing the whole while keeping the story moving.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

A Winter Festival of Chamber Music, Featuring Some Rarely Performed Works

Seattle Chamber Music Festival

For 31 years, Seattle has been blessed for a month every summer with some of the best chamber music performances in the country, and for a decade and more, a long weekend of more of the same in the winter. Founding artistic director and cellist Toby Saks of Seattle Chamber Music Society recently presided over a seamless turnover of leadership to violinist James Ehnes, a long-time player with both summer and winter festivals. This past weekend was the first with his stamp on it.

Four concerts were presented at Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall. As has been the usual format, three have been a free recital followed by a paid-for performance, the two together being a generous serving of music. The fourth has usually been a special concert: This time it was Ehnes and pianist Andrew Armstrong in a concert-long violin and piano recital.

James Ehnes

Instead of three recitals, each featuring one musician, Ehnes chose to feature music, specifically the three string quartets of Brahms, played by the same four musicians. At the Friday and Sunday performances, with Quartets Nos. 2 and 3, Ehnes played first violin, Amy Schwartz Moretti, second violin; Richard O’Neill, viola; and Robert deMaine, cello.

The four have played at these festivals often, and have chosen to play together outside it in an informal alliance (something that must be hard to arrange: Moretti lives in Macon, Georgia; O’Neill divides his time between California and Korea; deMaine is based in Detroit; and Ehnes, a Canadian, leads a peripatetic existence around the world).

It showed in their excellent ensemble work and similarity of approach. In Friday’s concert, they also played together in Bartók’s Quartet No. 4, surprisingly its first appearance at any SCMS concert, giving a superb performance, highlighted by their sure feeling for the music and their ease in conveying that to the audience.

Ehnes particularly wanted to find music never played before at these festivals, and he found some for each concert. This was a rare delight. As well as the Bartók on Friday, the second Brahms quartet was new to the festival; plus two pieces for piano quartet by Richard Strauss, Arabische Tanz and Liebesliebchen; and a Meditation on an old Czech Chorale, St Wenceslas, by Suk, while the concert was anchored by Mahler’s Quartet for Piano and Strings in A Minor to start and ended with Beethoven’s Trio for violin, cello, and piano in E-Flat Major.

Ehnes’ group performed the Suk, a beautiful work close to an elegy in atmosphere. Mahler’s is an astonishingly mature work for a 15-year-old. While it owes a debt to Brahms, it’s by no means a slavishly derivative piece, but strong in its own right. This and the Strauss were played by Scott Yoo, violin; Roberto Diaz, viola; Bion Tsang, cello; and Andrew Armstrong, piano, with warmth and sensitivity.

Violinist Erin Keefe, cellist Edward Arron, and pianist William Wolfram undertook the Beethoven. Wolfram performed as close to the style of the time as would be possible on a modern piano. His articulation and light touch brought an airiness to the work which gave it a carefree appeal. Keefe matched him in style though Arron tended to be a bit over-emphatic.

Sunday’s concert was devoted to Dvořák, with two works not heard at the festivals before, Prokofiev’s Sonata for cello and piano in C Major, and Brahms’ Viola Quintet for Strings in G Minor as a grand finale. Prokofiev wrote the sonata for Rostropovich, who he admired very much, and Arron and Wolfram played it here. The gorgeous sonority of Arron’s tone sang particularly on the lower strings of the cello, where much of this sonata lies, and he and Wolfram brought out the work’s appeal and charm, its depth and richness.

Quintessentially Dvořák, the five little Bagatelles are light and pure delight. Written for a harmonium (Armstrong), two violins (Yoo and Ehnes) and a cello (Tsang), they are often played with a piano instead, but the festival was able to borrow a fine harmonium from Tacoma organist David Dahl. The piano is a percussion instrument; the harmonium is a small portable organ with air pumped by pedal through pipes, and it has several stops. It changes the atmosphere of the music completely.

Armstrong and Wolfram performed the other Dvořák work, Silent Woods (Klid) for piano four hands, often not 100-percent together, particularly in the slower stately section. This is something difficult to achieve at any time without the intuition which comes from years of playing together, but otherwise it came off well, as did the Brahms Quintet with Schwartz Moretti, Keefe, Diaz, O’Neill, and deMaine.

Virtually full and enthusiastic houses attended both well-designed programs, and the playing was as usual of the first rank throughout. This year’s summer festival will run from July 2 to 27, and next winter the festival, running from January 19 to 27, will be expanded from four concerts to six.

Two of the musicians have received prestigious appointments since their last appearances with the festival here: Keefe has been appointed concertmaster of the Minnesota Symphony, and Diaz is now president and CEO of the Curtis Institute of Music.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Hamelin Treats Seattle to a Cheery Shostakovich and Dolorous Schnittke

Marc-André Hamelin

It’s rare to have an entire concert of 20th-century Russian chamber music, and thanks go to the Seattle Symphony musicians and pianist Marc-André Hamelin, who put together the program of Shostakovich and Schnittke works performed last Friday night at Nordstrom Recital Hall.

Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet, Op. 57, may be in a minor key, but it’s one of the most cheerful chamber works the composer wrote. The ominous undercurrents which are rarely distant from his other works are absent here, and it can be enjoyed for just what it is, a well-designed, substantive work, full of melody.

Violinists Elisa Barston and guest violinist Natasha Bazhanov, violist Mara Gearman, and cellist Walter Gray, with Hamelin, caught the detail and the feelings which are widely different in succeeding movements: the first almost fantasia-like; the second with a haunting opening phrase (reminiscent of “Nahandove,” one of Ravel’s Chansons Madecasse); the third, a Scherzo, almost circus music, jaunty but with a hint of the macabre; and the fourth bright and peaceful though with what might be heard as a tolling bell.

Each of the strings players had moments of gorgeous tone, unpushed and warm, quiet and tender, while Hamelin, who could hardly have had more than one rehearsal, played as though he’d been with them for years.

Alfred Schnittke

Alfred Schnittke’s Piano Quintet, completed about 35 years after the previous quintet, is a very different work. This is full of sadness, as Schnittke mourned the death of his mother and then the death of Shostakovich. It’s not an easy work to assimilate, the atonal music having little by way of melody or comfortable harmonies. Violinist Mikhail Shmidt had worked with the composer in Moscow and described him as a modest, shy man who thought others’ music better than his own.

The piano role is spare. Every note counts, rather like the musical equivalent of a drawing by artist Paul Klee, and several times Schnittke includes an insistent repeated note which continues for some time.

Most notably in the first movement, this is at the top of the piano and struck so that it is more percussion than tone for most of its repetition, only towards the end becoming more gentle and singing. The strings meanwhile play in dissonant harmony in long notes which sound something like a hive of bees, and in the second movement a slightly bizarre waltz creeps in. Only by listening carefully does one discern the subtleties Schnittke has embedded in the music throughout.

And by watching. At the end of the first movement as the music became quieter and quieter, with only the piano remaining, Hamelin’s hands came off the keys and one could see his fingers moving above them in total silence. An unfortunate burst of clapping marred that hushed, unusual ending, from a part of the hall where the hands could not be seen. Shmidt and Hamelin were joined by violinist Artur Girsky, violist Sayaka Kokubo, and cellist Meeka Quan DiLorenzo in a performance given enthhusastic applause at the end.

First and shortest of the evening was another work impelled by grief. At eighteen, Shostakovich wrote this Prelude and later a companion Scherzo, for string octet, after the death of a friend. They are astonishing works for a teenager, harmonically sophisticated, intense, frenzied, eerie and grim, each part resolving only towards the end, expressing the anger towards death of a young man. The eight string players together gave it a strong performance.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Classical Music on the Cheap: Opera at the Library

Classical music often gets a bad rap as being a status symbol for the wealthy.  There’s a popular misconception that classical concerts are prohibitively expensive affairs attended by snobbish rich folks. Author and classical music critic Alex Ross sums it up well in his recent post in The New Yorker‘s arts & entertainment blog:

If popular stereotypes about classical music held true, the genre should have had no social or political relevance in 2011, one of the darkest and angriest years in recent American history. Classical music is, we are given to understand, the playground of the one per cent, the province of the super-rich. When concerts are depicted in the movies, you see élites in evening wear gazing snootily through archaic eyewear at misbehaving interlopers.

In reality, the price of a Seattle Symphony or Seattle Opera ticket is comparable to a seat at a rock concert or sports event. There are also plenty of free and nearly-free classical concerts that are every bit as exciting as the high-profile celebrity recitals and opera productions. Discounts and deals on tickets abound. Classical music is actually quite accessible to everyone–you just have to know where to look.

In this new monthly series, “Classical Music on the Cheap”, I’ll explore different ways of enjoying classical music in Seattle without breaking the bank.  So whether you’ve resolved to spend less, get out more, or expand your musical horizons, be sure to check out Seattle’s vibrant classical music scene this year.

This month, I head to your local branch of the Seattle Public Library for a free preview of Seattle Opera’s production of Attila, the 1846 opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The previews began this week and continue through next week in preparation for the opening night of Attila on January 14. Several branches around the city will be offering previews, which feature a lecture, musical excerpts, and video clips. Learn about the history and story of the opera and get a behind-the-scenes peek at the Seattle Opera production.

If live music is what you’re after, SPL’s Central Library hosts a free monthly concert series presented by the Ladies Musical Club of Seattle. This month’s recital is on January 11 at noon and features works by Rachmaninoff, Mendelssohn, Czerny, and Arutiunian. Violinist Candice Chin, clarinetist David Frank, and pianists Jim Whitehead, Risa Jun, and Yelena Balabanova will perform. If you work downtown or on First Hill, this concert series offers a great excuse to get out of the office at lunchtime. The Ladies Musical Club also offers free concerts at other Seattle venues, including the Seattle Art Museum, the Frye Art Museum, and local retirement communities.

The Central Library also hosts other free concerts and musical events from time to time.  Check the Central events page for a schedule and more information.