Tag Archives: stravinsky

HJ Lim Drops the Hammers on Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto

Pianist HJ Lim
Pianist HJ Lim

On the face of it, Thursday’s Seattle Symphony concert at Benaroya (repeated this Saturday) had a wonderful program with a gifted young soloist and well-known conductor. It should have added up to a superb evening of music-making.

Alas, the young pianist, 25-year-old HJ Lim (her preferred spelling) chose to take Mendelssohn’s musical ideas for his Piano Concerto No. 1 and, instead of allowing the sensibilities of his era to shine through,  imposed hers on top. This was not Mendelssohn as he would have recognized it.

Starting with an aggressively forceful start and very fast, Lim’s playing insistently reminded the listener that the piano is a percussion instrument. This impression came back many times during the performance, but in between she created a beautiful tone with a sensitive touch, particularly during the second movement.

It was a flashy performance of tension and dramatic emotion, more suited to 1931 than 1831 (the date of the concerto), including deeply exaggerated stretching of tempos during solo sections. Lim has undeniably excellent technical ability, but Mendelssohn’s work comes in the early years of the Romantic era and her interpretation was out of that particular ball park. Guest conductor Jun Märkl ably kept the orchestra together with Lim even in her most idiosyncratic moments. The audience loved it and she performed as encore her own arrangement of the Korean song Arirang.

The concert began with Stravinsky’s charming Suite from Pulcinella, in which he took music of Pergolesi and transmuted it to something purely Stravinsky, but with all the elegant Baroque melodies shining through. Märkl and a reduced orchestra (half the musicians are playing for Seattle Opera’s Cenerentola which starts tomorrow), gave it sparkle, vigor, and clear articulation. At one moment it was lilting and unhurried; at another brash, almost rude; at another fast and lively. Solos dot this lightly orchestrated work, ably played by all, but notably from concertmaster Alexander Velinzon, principal cellist Efe Baltacigil, and principal oboe Ben Hausmann

The work admirably suited Märkl’s style of conducting. He moves like a fencer, graceful and balanced; and quick, precise and decisive in his indications to the musicians, very much in charge of every detail.

He used the same style in Mozart’s Symphony No. 39 in E-Flat Major, which he conducted without the score. He gave it plenty of vitality, with a portentous beginning and then good contrasts with more lyrical parts, though sometimes his approach seemed a little heavy, and in the second movement he asked for some oddly overlong hesitations which changed the flow of the music. He brought elegance to the third movement and an exciting finish to the fourth.

Violinist Augustin Hadelich Delivers “Extraordinary Performance” at Seattle’s Chamber Music Festival

Augustin Hadelich, violinist (Photo: Rosalie O’Connor)

The second week of Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival wrapped up Friday night with half the performance being two-piano works, and the other half string octets, one of each being classical, one of each being 20th century, a good study in contrasts.

But first, the recital. This year, these free half-hours by one or two musicians introducing and performing their own choices have been some of the most absorbing performances of the evening, and Friday’s was no exception. It featured violinist Augustin Hadelich and pianist Orion Weiss in Stravinsky’s Divertimento for Violin and Piano, followed by Tchaikovsky’s Valse-Scherzo, Op. 34, not played here before.

On the face of it, this seems straightforward, but in his comments Hadelich announced this was a frivolous program, explaining that Stravinsky transcribed various works by Tchaikovsky to create a ballet, The Fairy’s Kiss, and in the process mischievously “Stravinskified” the Tchaikovsky. He and Weiss were about to perform first the Stravinsky version of one work, complete with “mistakes” where the performers get apparently out of sync before trying to recover, and then the original Tchaikovsky from which it was taken.

It was an extraordinary performance by both but particularly Hadelich who tossed off the difficult technical aspects with lightness and ease while maintaining the delight and fun in these works. Where else could we hear such a coupling, together with an explanation, and performed by two consummate artists who were completely in tune with each other and the music?

In the ensuing concert, Festival newcomer Inon Barnatan and Adam Neiman played Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K. 488, in a spirited, elegant performance absolutely together.

Jeremy Denk, pianist

Sounding less rehearsed, less insightful than one would expect from these two pianists, and not always quite together, pianists Jeremy Denk and Weiss gave a work new to the Festival, Debussy’s 1915 En blanc et noir.

According to the composer it was intended to be abstract, but the first, fast-moving, angry movement and the second dedicated to a friend killed in the war, are fierce indictments of war with trumpet-like blasts and interpolations of Luther’s hymn “Ein’ feste burg.” The last movement, dedicated to Stravinsky, has inklings of the aftermath of war. The performance brought out many of the moods which ebb and flow throughout, both gentle and forceful, the lugubrious start to the second movement with its elegiac moments and the quickfooted final one.

Shostakovich is normally the composer we associate with musical thoughts on war and its ravages, but his Two Pieces for String Octet, Op. 11, are more straightforward. He was eighteen when he composed the Prelude on the death of a close friend from typhoid, and a year later added a Scherzo as a companion piece. The performance, by violinists Hadelich, Ida Levin, Stephen Rose and Benjmin Beilman (another festival newcomer), violists Cynthia Phelps and Richard O’Neill, and cellists Ronald Thomas and Bion Tsang, brought out the declamatory and dirge-like nature of the Prelude and its eventual resolution toward some sort of peace, while the players gave the Scherzo its darker, frenetic side, vigorous, discordant, disturbing, and screechy.

The same group went on to play a work from just a century earlier but light years away in temperament: Mendelssohn’s String Octet, an amazing accomplishment for a sixteen-year-old. While the performers led by Hadelich achieved many moments of glorious songfulness, particularly in the dancing, quicksilver third movement, whenever the music reached a forte, they sounded too forceful for the music, turning the tone a bit ugly, particularly in the highest register.

Roberto Abbado Conducts Seattle Symphony in Exciting “Pictures at an Exhibition”

Charismatic conductor Roberto Abbado joined the Seattle Symphony this past weekend for a diverse program of pieces that spanned the centuries, ranging from Haydn to Stravinsky. Modest Mussorgsky’s beloved Pictures at an Exhibition anchored the progam. Rounding out the set was André Jolivet’s Concertino for Trumpet, featuring the Symphony’s own David Gordon.

Roberto Abbado

The diversity of pieces gave Abbado plenty of opportunities to demonstrate his conducting chops. Heralding from a musical family, Abbado can claim relation to several other famous musicians, including the famed conductor Claudio Abbado, who is his uncle.

The evening opened with a Scherzo à la russe, a brief work by Stravinsky. Originally intended to be part of a film score, the piece is less dramatic and jarring than many of Stravinsky’s famous works, particularly the intensely rhythmic Rite of Spring. However, strains of Stravinsky’s signature Russian folk melodies could be heard, adding interest to the work.

André Jolivet’s Concertino for Trumpet followed the Stravinsky. The work contrasts the strident tone of the solo trumpet with both string orchestra and piano textures. Composed in 1948, the Concertino‘s difficult passages demonstrate the full technical range of the trumpet. Principal Trumpet David Gordon performed with great virtuosity. The piece calls for two different trumpet mutes to be used, highlighting the variety of sonic textures that can be created with the instrument.

Duly wowed by Gordon’s performance, the audience seemed to relax into their seats for Haydn’s Symphony No. 93. But Papa Haydn had a few surprises up his sleeve that left everyone entertained and on the edge of their seats. Haydn’s compositions are full of dramatic flair, and Abbado encouraged the orchestra to play up the drama, highlighting sudden changes in dynamics and tempo.

David Gordon

However, most of the entertaining aspects of the piece were written into the score. Towards the end of the staid second movement, the orchestra slowly fades away to a standstill. The silence is broken by an enormous honk from the bassoon, which kickstarts a reprise of the movement’s main theme. That certainly woke up the audience, who were too shocked to laugh at Haydn’s musical joke. The musicians and Abbado seemed to enjoy the moment, though.

The highlight of the evening was a performance of Modest Mussorgsky’s most famous work, Pictures at an Exhibition. The piece relates Mussorgsky’s experiences while roaming through a gallery of paintings by his friend Victor Hartmann. Each movement depicts a work of art on display in the gallery. These are tied together by a recurring theme which appears in the “Promenade” movements that appear throughout the piece. These are intended to represent the composer strolling from one painting to another.

Anyone who loves the symphony orchestra must experience a live performance of Pictures at an Exhibition at least once in their lifetime. The piece showcases the entire range of orchestral sounds, from majestic brass fanfares and mournful saxophone solos to frenetic string passages and pounding timpani.

Seattle Symphony’s performance on Saturday night sounded particularly fresh and vibrant. The string section gave a crisp performance, especially in the whirling “Baba Yaga” movement. In the “Great Gate of Kiev” finale, the low brass added power and grandeur to the full orchestral sound.

Seattle audiences still have another chance to catch Maestro Abbado in action. He presents another program with the Seattle Symphony this coming weekend, featuring Schumann’s Symphony No. 4 and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2.