Today's Birthdays

Ditta Pásztory-Bartók (1903-1982)
Louise Talma (1906-1996)
August Everding (1928-1999)
Colin Tilney (1933)
Odaline de la Martinez (1949)
Naji Hakim (1955)

and

Jan Vermeer (1632-1675)
John Keats (1795-1821)
Susan Orlean (1955)

from The New Music Box

On October 31, 1896, the Boston Symphony premiered the Gaelic" Symphony in E Minor by Mrs. H.H.A. Beach (Amy Marcy Cheney Beach), the first symphony by an American woman ever publicly performed.
and from the Composers Datebook:

On this date in 1933, Arnold Schoenberg, accompanied by his wife, baby daughter, and family pet terrier "Witz," arrives in New York on the liner Isle de France.

Interview with oboist Ben Price at the Curtis Insitute of Music

 

Portland has nurtured a lot of terrific musicians. One of them, Ben Price is currently studying oboe at Curtis. I interviewed Ben last week, and it is now posted on Oregon ArtsWatch here.

Today's Birthdays

Peter Warlock (Philip Arnold Heseltine) (1894-1930)
Stanley Sadie (1930-2005)
Frans Brüggen (1934-2014)
Grace Slick (1939)
René Jacobs (1946)
James Judd (1949)
Shlomo Mintz (1957)

and

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816)
André Chénier (1762-1794)
Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
Robert Caro (1935)

Today's Birthdays

Harold Darke (1888-1976)
Vivian Ellis (1904-1996)
Václav Neumann (1920-1995)
Jon Vickers (1926-2015)
James Dillon (1950)
Lee Actor (1952)
James Primosch (1956)

and

James Boswell (1740-1795)
Harriet Powers (1837-1910)
Henry Green (1905-1973)
David Remnick (1958)

Today's Birthdays

Giuditta Pasta (1797-1865)
Howard Hanson (1896-1981)
Dame Cleo Laine (1927)
Carl Davis (1936-2023)
Howard Blake (1938)
Kenneth Montgomery (1943)
Naida Cole (1974)

and

Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)
John Harold Hewitt (1907-1987)
Francis Bacon (1909-1992)
John Hollander (1929-2013)
Anne Perry (1938-2023)

Review plus article on new things at the Curtis Institute of Music published in CVNA

 

Last weekend I visited the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and went to a couple of concerts. You can read all about this amazing conservatory in Classical Voice North America here.

Today's Birthdays

Maxim Berezovsky (1745-1777)
Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840)
Helmut Walcha (1907-1991)
Conlon Nancarrow (1912-1997)
Dominick Argento (1927-2019)
Elliot Del Borgo (1938-2013)
Julius Eastman (1940-1990)
Håkan Hardenberger (1961)
Vanessa-Mae (1978)

and

Lee Krasner (1908-1994)
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997)
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
Zadie Smith (1975)

Today's Birthdays

Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612)
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
Johan Helmich Roman (1694-1758)
Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972)
György Pauk (1936)
Christine Brewer (1955)
Natalie Merchant (1963)
Sakari Oramo (1965)
Vijay Iyer (1971)

and

Andrei Bely (1880-1934)
Napoleon Hill (1883-1970)
John Arden (1930-2012)
Andrew Motion (1952)

Today's Birthdays

Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623)
Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)
Georges Bizet (1838-1875)
Don Banks (1923-1980)
Galina Vishnevskaya (1926-2012)
Peter Lieberson (1946)
Diana Burrell (1948)
Colin Carr (1957)
Midori (1971)

and

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
John Berryman (1914-1972)
Anne Tyler (1941)

Today's Birthdays

Ferdinand Hiller (1811-1885)
Imre [Emmerich] Kálman (1882-1953)
Conrad Leonard (1898-2003)
Paul Csonka (1905-1995)
Tito Gobbi (1913-1984)
Luciano Berio (1925-2003)
George Crumb (1929-2022)
Sofia Gubaidulina (1931)
Malcolm Bilson (1935)
Bill Wyman (1936)
George Tsontakis (1951)
Cheryl Studer (1955)

and

Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879)
Moss Hart (1904-1961)
Denise Levertov (1923-1997)
Norman Rush (1933)

Today's Birthdays

Albert Lortzing (1801-1851)
Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923)
Miriam Gideon (1906-1996)
Denise Duval (1921-2016)
Ned Rorem (1923)
Lawrence Foster (1941)
Toshio Hosokawa (1955)
"Weird Al" Yankovic (1959)
Brett Dean (1961)

and

Robert Bridges (1844-1930)
Johnny Carson (1925-2005)
Nick Tosches (1949)
Laurie Halse Anderson (1961)

Review: Slatkin and Roman dazzle with the Oregon Symphony

Joshua Roman singing and playing

Leonard Slatkin made a long-awaited return to the podium to lead the Oregon Symphony (October 16) at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, and boy did he ever make his presence felt. The globe-trotting conductor teamed up with the local band for spellbinding performances of works by Beethoven and Mason Bates, with Joshua Roman, the combined forces delivered a spellbinding Elgar “Cello Concerto.” And the concert came with a terrific encore by Roman and a fun-filled number that the orchestra literally whooped up.

It was sometime in the 1970s when Slatkin last appeared with the orchestra, which was then the Portland Symphony. Since that time, he has racked up 6 Grammys, 35 Grammy nominations, and done stints as music director of orchestras in St. Louis, Detroit, and Lyon, France, plus he has led concerts in practically every major venue around the world. Other than Dimitri Mitropoulos and Igor Stravinsky, both of whom appeared in Portland in the 1950s, Slatkin is the most prestigious conductor to have led the hometown ensemble.

According to Slatkin (see my interview with him in Oregon ArtsWatch), the Oregon Symphony has been noticed for its programming of new music. So, he not only put “Anthology of a Fantastic Zoology” on the program, he made the 30-minute piece, which Bates wrote in 2015, the featured work after intermission.

Consisting of eleven movements named after imaginative creatures from Jorge Luis Borges’ eponymous book, the “Anthology of a Fantastic Zoology” showcased the orchestra’s new music chops. Like a lot of contemporary orchestral music, the piece offered a huge variety of percussion instruments, including timpani, timpani with piccolo D, rototoms, bass drum, castanets, Chinese drum, congas, crotales, cymbals, herd bells, hi hat, ratchet, snare drum, suspended cymbal, witches, tambourine, tam tam, triangle, vibraphone, whip, wind machine, wood block, and xylophone. Slatkin and his forces set this menagerie of instruments whirling about to portray a magical world that traveled from twilight to the witching hour between midnight and dawn (madrugada) in the company of a sprite, nymphs, a gryphon, sirens, a Zaratan, and a snake-like creature called A Bao A Qu.

The movements flowed without pause from one to another and a dizzying array of sonic effects emanated from various parts of the orchestra. There were moments when the strings fired off short, zippy sounds, the flutes fashioned wiggly lines, two violinists stood to the far right and left of the strings to play lyrical passages, tones ricocheted around while some seemed to bubble up from the deep, a big percussive sforzando was followed by a scattering of random-like notes, the celeste elevated one passage into the ether, a massive crescendo melted and decayed into mild blur from the brass section. The collage of sound became tense and then more motoric and louder at the end of piece, making me wonder if all of the creatures got along with each other.

Roman gave a mesmerizing performance of Elgar’s “Cello Concerto,” delving into its dark and tragic emotion and its lighter moments with great sensitivity. Highlights included his immaculate fingerwork during the very fast phrases, the sense of longing and tenderness during the slow movement which at times seemed to hang by a thread, the robust outbursts, and the soul-searching ending.

The standing ovation brought Roman back to center stage where he played and sang Lenard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” He even got the audience to sing the final refrain along with him, and that created a big, warm glow in the hall. Peace out!

The concert began with Beethoven’s “Leonore Overture No. 3” from his opera “Fidelio.” Under Slatkin, the orchestra unleashed an emotional intensity and joyful abandon that fully embraced the context of the story in which “Leonore,” rescues her husband, who has been unjustly held as a political prisoner. The orchestra didn’t hold anything back, and the result was truly stunning.

To top everything off, after the Bates piece, the orchestra cut loose with “Carmen’s Hoedown,” which Slatkin’s father, Felix Slatkin arranged in 1962. It was a fiddling, fun-filled excursion into a couple of the opera’s main tunes, featuring a washboard and violinist Greg Ewer letting out a yeehaw while putting a cowboy hat on his head. That sent everyone home with a smile.

Today's Birthdays

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Sir Donald McIntyre (1934)
Elizabeth Connell (1946)

and

John Reed (1887-1920)
John Gould (1908-2003)
Doris Lessing (1919-2013)

In 1883, the grand opening of the original Metropolitan Opera House in New York City with performance of Gounod's "Faust" with Auguste Vianesi, conducting.

Review: Portland Baroque Orchestra shouts joyously in 40th anniversary concert

Photo by Stephanie Noble

There was plenty of buzz plus a cheery glow at First Baptist Church for Portland Baroque Orchestra’s season opener (October 14), celebrating its 40th anniversary. The festive program featured the ensemble under newly minted Artistic Director Julian Perkins, and it spotlighted soprano Arwen Myers and PBO violinists Carla Moore and Rob Diggins as well as trumpeter Kris Kwapis. Works by Biber, Corelli, Handel, Vivaldi, and Bach aptly spread the cheer, giving the audience a taste of the excellent music making to come.

Perkins launched the joy with his arrangement of Purcell’s “Celebrate this Festival” from the “Birthday Ode for Queen Mary.” Although brief, the piece was dance-like yet stately and featured flowing lines from Kwapis.

Conducting from the harpsichord, Perkins inspired the musicians throughout the evening. Biber’s “Sonata No. 4 in C Major” continued the good vibes with violinist Carla Moore accenting sinewy lines. Daniel Swenberg’s theorbo added a subtle twang, and the elegant slow movement segued seamlessly into the third, concluding with a refined upswing.

Corelli’s “Concerto Grosso in F Major (Opus 6, No. 2) deftly contrasted light and dark moods with Moore and principal second violinist Rob Diggins providing a delightful one-two punch. Well-shaped phrases imbued with terrific dynamics and an effective, dramatic pause gave the piece a delightful edge.

One of the many highlights of the evening was Myers singing of Handel’s “Gloria in excelsis deo.” The astonishing ease with which she executed numerous runs with immaculate clarity and warmth was mind-boggling. If Myers were paid a dollar for every note she sang, she would have had a hefty sum to take home. She was also impressive in the slower movements, leaning ever so slightly into words like “miserere nobis” and expertly expanding and contracting the volume control when singing “Qui tollis” and other passages. Combined with well-crafted accompaniment from the chamber orchestra, the Handel was flat out glorious.

Moore and Diggins got to strut their stuff in Vivaldi’s “Concerto for Two Violins in A Minor,” breaking out of the gate in the first movement at a terrific clip that was on the verge of getting a speeding ticket. Their superb exchange of phrases in the second movement elicited sense of a beautiful conversation between friends. The dramatic intensity of the third movement included shifts from forte to pianissimo that were just marvelous, wrapping up the piece with a colorful bow.

Myers returned to center stage to deliver a sparkling Bach’s “Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen” with Kwapis providing outstanding, florid lines with her trumpet from the back of the orchestra. That created an exceptionally balanced sound. Myers applied lots of nuances, such as when she used a slightly stuttering style when singing “der schwache Mund” (“the weak mouth”), which made the piece very touching. In the last movement, “Alleluja,” she again dazzled listeners with blitzing runs, and Perkins accompanied them with his right hand on the keyboard of the portative organ and his left hand on the keyboard of the harpsichord. That looked super fun!

Today's Birthdays

Joseph Canteloube (1879-1957)
Egon Wellesz (1885-1974)
Howard Ferguson (1908-1999)
Alexander Schneider (1908-1993)
Sir Georg Solti (1912-1997)
Dizzy (John Birks) Gillespie (1917-1993)
Sir Malcom Arnold (1921-2006)
Marga Richter (1926-2020)
Shulamit Ran (1949)
Hugh Wolff (1953)

and

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
Alfred Nobel (1833-1896)
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018)

Newsy items in Oregon Arts Watch

 Periodically, I will be writing up some brief newsy items for Oregon ArtsWatch. The first of these appeared yesterday here. 

Today's Birthdays

Charles Ives (1874-1954)
Jelly Roll Morton (1890-1941)
Adelaide Hall (1901-1993)
Alfredo Campoli (1906-1991)
Adelaide Hall (1909-1993)
Robert Craft (1923-2015)
Jacques Loussier (1934)
William Albright (1944-1998)
Ivo Pogorelich (1958)
Leila Josefowicz (1977)

and

Christopher Wren (1632-1723)
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)
John Dewey(1859-1952)
Robert Pinsky (1940)
Elfriede Jelinek (1946)

Review: Out of the Dark concert with 45th Parallel Universe

A string nonet eliciting the intense tango music of Osvaldo Golijov’s “Last Round” provided a knock-out punch for 45th Parallel Universe at The Old Madeleine Church (October 13). The near-capacity audience easily got into the emotional content of the Piazzolla-inspired piece, which was the second number in a program that included the mysterious “Succubus Moon” by Eleanor Alberga and “Out of the Dark” by Kenneth Fuchs.

The dueling string quartets positioned on either side of bassist Mariya-Andoniya Andonova in the “Last Round” created an emotional tug-of-war by leaning into notes with fierce abandon that was contagious. The music picked up speed until it seemed to verge on careening out of control, but suddenly stopped and like a balloon with the air going out of it, slid to a hot and sultry melodic line, supported by a throbbing bass. The piece then gradually wheezed and came to slow, subdued end that was very satisfying.

“Succubus Moon,” an oboe quintet by Jamaica-born, British composer Alberga evoked a demonic presence at night when the moon is out. Oboist Karen Wagner created all sorts of beguiling sounds in arresting exchanges with the string quartet (violinists Emily Cole and Shin-Young Kwon, violist Matthew Ross, and cellist Marily de Oliveira). An uneasy pensiveness pervaded much of the piece with the oboe dishing out some extremely high notes or tones that wiggled about suggestively. Perhaps they were meant to lead the strings astray. Whatever the case, it was an arresting number that deserves to be heard more than once

The abstract nature of “Out of the Dark (After Three Paintings by Helen Frankenthaler)” by Fuchs was more difficult to absorb. Performed by the Arcturus Quintet (hornist Joe Berger, flutist Martha Long, clarinetist Lou DeMartino, Bassoonist Carin Miller, and oboist Karen Wagner) and a string quartet (violinists Greg Ewer and Ron Blessinger, violist Charles Noble, cellist Kevin Kunkel), the music was accompanied by the projections of Frankenthaler’s paintings on a large screen behind the musicians. The first image was kind of a like a boxy Rorschach test framed in rust and black colors. The strings started in an argumentative fashion with the winds more contemplative and the horn fairly loud and robust, and it ended in a pointillistic, almost fragmentary way. The bouncy string sounds in the second movement seemed at odds with the projected painting, which was similar to the first painting but with yellow and brown and black hues. A soaring line from the horn and trilling passages from the woodwinds filled in the third movement. The painting paired with them was more defined and less blotchy. I guess it all fit together as a whole, but I wasn’t convinced one way or the other. Maybe a post-concert Q and A would have helped. Blessinger, in his introductory remarks, explained how the piece travelled from a serial style to a more graspable ending in C major, but I think it was fairly elusive to actually hear and comprehend. Nevertheless, everyone applauded enthusiastically.

Today's Birthdays

Sidonie Goossens (1899-2004)
Vittorio Giannini (1903-1966)
Karl-Birger Blomdahl (1916-1968)
Emil Gilels (1916-1985)
Robin Holloway (1943)
Robert Morris (1943)

and

Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)
Auguste Lumière (1862-1954)
Miguel Ángel Asturias (1899-1974)
Jack Anderson (1922-2005)
John le Carré (David John Moore Cornwell) (1931-2020)
Philip Pullman (1946)
Tracy Chevalier (1962)

Today's Birthdays

Luca Marenzio (1553-1599)
Baldassare Galuppi (1706-1785)
Lotte Lenya (1898-1981)
Alexander Young (1920-2000)
Egil Hovland (1924-2013)
Chuck Berry (1926-2017)
Wynton Marsalis (1961)

and

Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811)
Henri Bergson (1859-1941)
A. J. Liebling (1904-1963)
Ntozake Shange (1948)
Wendy Wasserstein (1950-2006)
Rick Moody (1961)

Article about the Metropolitan Youth Symphony and its season - published in OAW

 

My article about the MYS and its upcoming season is now available in Oregon ArtsWatch here.

Article about the Portland Youth Philharmonic and season in OAW

I've written a few words about the PYP and its 100th anniversary season for Oregon ArtsWatch. You can find it online here.

 

Today's Birthdays

Herbert Howells (1892-1983)
Shinichi Suzuki (1898-1998)
Rolando Panerai (1924-2019)
Reiner Goldberg (1939)
Stephen Kovacevich (1940)

and

Georg Büchner (1813-1837)
Nathanael West (1903-1940)
Arthur Miller (1915-2005)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1978, President Jimmy Carter presents the Congressional Medal of Honor to singer Marian Anderson.

and from The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1933 that Albert Einstein officially moved to the United States to teach at Princeton University. He had been in California working as a visiting professor when Hitler took over as chancellor of Germany. Einstein’s apartment in Berlin and his summer cottage in the country were raided, his papers confiscated, and his bank accounts closed. He returned to Europe and handed in his German passport, renouncing his citizenship. He considered offers from all over the world, including Paris, Turkey, and Oxford. Einstein eventually decided on Princeton, which offered him an attractive package teaching at its Institute for Advanced Study — but he had his hesitations about the university. For one thing, it had a clandestine quota system in place that only allowed a small percentage of the incoming class to be Jewish. The Institute’s director, Abraham Flexner, was worried that Einstein would be too directly involved in Jewish refugee causes, so he micromanaged Einstein’s public appearances, keeping him out of the public eye when possible. He even declined an invitation for Einstein to see President Roosevelt at the White House without telling the scientist. When Einstein found out, he personally called Eleanor Roosevelt and arranged for a visit anyway, and then complained about the incident in a letter to a rabbi friend of his, giving the return address as “Concentration Camp, Princeton.” In 1938, incoming freshmen at Princeton ranked Einstein as the second-greatest living person; first place went to Adolf Hitler.

Today's Birthdays

Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745)
Franz [Ferenc] Doppler (1821-1883)
James Lockhart (1930)
Derek Bourgeois (1941)
Marin Alsop (1956)
Erkki-Sven Tüür (1959)
Dmitri Hvorostovsky (1962-2017)

and

Noah Webster (1758-1843)
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953)
Günter Grass (1927-2015)
Thomas Lynch (1948)

And from the Writer's Almanac:

In 1882, during a tour across the US, Oscar Wilde lectured to coal miners in Leadville, Colorado, where he saw a sign on a saloon that said, "Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best," and called it "the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across."

Today's Birthdays

Bernhard Crusell (1775-1838)
Zdeněk Fibich (1850-1900)
Dag Wirén (1905-1985)
Harold Blumenfeld (1923-2014)
Karl Richter (1926-1981)
Barry McGuire (1935)
Suzanne Murphy (1941)
Peter Phillips (1953)

and

Virgil (70 B.C.E.- 19 B.C.E.)
Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)
Friedrich Nietzsche, (1844-1900
P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975)
Varian Fry (1907-1967)
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006)
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1917-2007)
Italo Calvino (1923-1985)
Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

Today's Birthdays

Alexander Zimlinsky (1871-1942)
Gary Graffman (1928)
Rafael Puyana (1931-2013)
Enrico di Giuseppe (1932-2005)
La Monte (Thorton) Young (1935)
Sir Cliff Richard (1940)
Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023)

and

Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923)
E. E. Cummings (1894-1962)
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)
Katha Pollitt (1949)

Marc-André Hamelin talks about his upcoming Portland Piano International recital

Portland Piano International presents one of the world’s great pianists, Marc-André Hamelin, in two recitals this weekend. The first takes place on Sunday (October 15) at 4 pm at Lincoln Performance Hall and the second will be held on Tuesday (October 17) at 7:30 pm Flanagan Chapel on the campus of Lewis & Clark College. The concerts will feature the same program: Charles Ives “Concord Sonata,” Schumann’s “Waldszenen,” and Ravel’s “Gaspard de la nuit.”

Among the accolades the Hamelin has received are 7 Juno awards and 11 Grammy nominations. He has also made over 70 recordings with Hyperion Records and maintains a busy schedule that takes him to concert halls around the world.

Yesterday, I spoke with Hamelin via Zoom about the music that he will play. Here is an edited version of our conversation.

Is there a particular reason that you have put these pieces by Ives, Schumann, and Ravel on the same program?

Hamelin: I love these pieces, and I think that they balance well with each other.

When did you first encounter the “Concord Sonata”?

Hamelin: I’ve been living with the Ives for almost 50 years. It was a point of introduction for me into newer music. I was 13. My father was a subscriber to Clavier magazine. In October of 1974, Clavier celebrated an Ives centennial with a special edition. It had a lot of articles about his piano music and several had several references to his Concord Sonata. Our local little record shop had a copy of John Kirkpatrick’s second recording of it in 1968 on Columbia. So I bought it. It was the first record that I had ever purchased for myself. It was in June, and I listened to it for a whole summer. It opened up a new language, a new way of doing things musically. I was schooled in the standard repertoire, but I wanted to explore what else was out there.

The Ives was a pleasurable shock, and later in September I got the score. I played it for my master’s recital at university. That was in 1985, and I was 23. The first half of the program was the “Concord Sonata.” The second half was the Chopin “Barcarolle” and Prokofiev’s “Seventh Piano Sonata.”

Ives said of his “Concord Sonata” that it is more like a group of four pieces. They are composite pictures of the Transcendentalist New England writers: Emerson, Hawthorne, the Alcotts, and Thoreau. About three-quarters of the piece is not barred. It is meter-less, actually – a very free discourse. The music has very little harmonic logic to it, although it actually works. It is really beyond analysis.

The most digitally demanding movement is the Hawthorne movement. It goes very, very fast. The most approachable are the last two movements, and I have seen The Alcotts movement included in anthologies so that it could be approached by amateurs.

Tell us a little about Schumann’s “Waldszenen” (Forest Scenes).

Hamelin: They are wonderful sound-pictures, much like his “Kinderszenen” (Scenes from Childhood) and “Kreisleriana.” I really owe my awakening to the “Waldszenen” because of a great Italian teacher, Maria Curcio. She went into detail about the character of each piece. They are among Schumann’s most successful works even though they are comparatively late in his career. In some cases, his creative powers grew weaker over time, but the “Waldszenen” is a late gem.

Give us your take on Ravel's "Gaspard de la nuit."

Hamelin: I think that the “Gaspard de la nuit” is one of the most shattering original works for piano ever written. That piece and the Boulez “Second Sonata” are the highest pieces in all of Twentieth Century piano literature, because of what they communicate. Each of the three movements of “Gaspard de la nuit” illustrate a prose poem from a collection of poems by Aloysius Bertrand. And Gaspard is more or less the devil in stories told by a mysterious figure. The flavor of the French poem is somewhat lost in translation. What makes the music so great is how much Ravel’s imagination translated the poetry into musical form. There are some gob smacking slashes of genius in there. Each time I go back to the piece, I just marvel at how the music translates the poems so well – not line by line but the general flavor.

What is next for you afteryou leave Portland?

Hamelin: I will be playing in Amsterdam, then Rome and Hamburg in November.

Safe travels!

Hamelin: Thanks!

Today's Birthdays

Art Tatum (1910-1956)
Hugo Weisgall (1912-1997)
Gustav Winckler (1925-1979)
Paul Simon (1941)
Leona Mitchell (1949)
Kristine Ciesinski (1950)
Melvyn Tan (1956)
Mark Applebaum (1967)

and

Conrad Richter (1890-1968)
Arna Bontemps (1902-1973)

Oregon Symphony celebrates minimalism in Kahane-curated concert

Deanna Tham conducting | Photo by Rachel Hadiashar

Minimalism never had it so good. That’s the feeling I came away with after hearing the Oregon Symphony at The Patricia Reser Center for the Arts (October 6). The orchestra – trimmed down to a variety of chamber ensembles and solos – dished up a delicious sampling of minimalist treats – curated expertly by Gabriel Kahane, who is really hitting his stride as the orchestra’s Creative Chair.

Each piece had the driving force of minimalism – hallmarked by repetitive sounds and patterns – but also by lyricism in various guises. With his informal and inviting style, Kahane, as emcee, made the concert an outright fun experience. He didn’t lecture the audience, but provided just enough of a handle to guide listeners through his personal gallery of favorite minimalist gems. The variety was terrific and the pace of the concert was spot on. Concertgoers, who filled most of the 550-seat hall.

Kahane quietly snuck to a grand piano at the back of the stage to start the show with the world premiere of his “For Meredith.” In this piece, a tribute to Meredith Monk, Kahane fashioned a lovely, wordless melody that had lots of warmth and color. While he sang, members of the chamber orchestra filed in silently, taking great care not to bump into music stands. They added to the piano underlayment and created a beautiful wash of sound.

That led directly (without a pause) to the next piece, the third movement (Fast) from Steve Reich’s “Electric Counterpoint, which was played by guitarist Mike Gamble. As he rocked back and forth, the light and airy music he generated had an hypnotic surfer vibe that was enhanced by the aqua-green-blue lighting splashed onto the back wall. It was all set at the same mezzo-forte volume-level, which was its only drawback.

Shelley Washington’s “Middleground” (in an arrangement for string orchestra by Leilehua Lanzilotti) fashioned a motoric sound to delightfully convey a family-filled car on a trip. The second violins created passages that suggested squabbling siblings. The lower strings calmed things over and after a sudden pause – the propulsive energy of the piece restarted and took on a conversational nature with brief solos tossed into the mix. Deanna Tham conducted the ensemble with precision, and the strings seemed to enjoy a style that bordered at times on fiddling.

From an upright piano perched on the front right-hand side of the stage, Kahane performed Meredith Monk’s pleasant and gentle “Ellis Island,” which segued nicely to Samuel Adams “Moments (for us and them).” Adams’ piece was a real tour de force for string orchestra – led by Tham’s incisive beat. It had a lot of twists and turns that led listeners down one path and then another that was completely different. A dramatic passage near the beginning featured the first violins slowly climbing higher and higher while the double basses were descending. Other segments buzzed with furious bowing from the entire ensemble. Concertmaster Inés Voglar Belgique delivered wonderful lyrical lines and all sorts of mercurial phrases. Sometimes it seemed that one section of the orchestra was struggling to get the upper hand against another. The rumbling double basses descended to some very low notes – detuning their instruments along the way – and the piece became incredibly melancholic to the edge of sadness. But then things took off again, and the piece surged with intensity, ending with a blur of mystery.

Cellist Trevor Fitzpatrick performed Andy Akiho’s “Three Shades, Foreshadows,” accompanied by an electronic soundtrack filled with an array of eclectic noises. Fitzpatrick emphasized the percussive qualities of the cello by deftly alternating between plucking, strumming, slapping, bowing, and other techniques while the electronics cycled through drumming patterns, machine-like sequences, scratchy segments, and other unorthodox sounds that suggested distortion. It looked challenging to play, and it was challenging to hear.

A dozen or so musicians were seated in a semi-circle to perform Julia Wolf’s “A Wild Furze.” It evoked sonic waves that were interjected with notes that slid down and away. In conducting this piece, Tham was more like a human metronome that provided a steady foundation

Violinist Erin Furbee gave a beautiful performance of the third movement (“Charukeshi”) of Reena Esmail’s “Darshan.” The music was lovely and filled with Indian lyricism and meant to evoke a way of seeing God. It also seemed to have the least amount of minimalistic style.

The concert ended on a fun, upbeat chatter with Julius Eastman’s joyful “Stay On It,” which was sort of a jam session for classical musicians and vocalist Holcomb Waller. Instead of a conductor, Kahane would stand from the piano and shout “one, two, three, four” in order to indicate a change in the sequence. An assemblage of 22 musicians included brass, woodwinds, and percussion, and all seemed to have a grand time with some making the most of an improvisational moment. The piece has a flexible framework; so Kahane and colleagues did a shorter 10-minute version rather than the longer 45-minute version. Whatever the length, the tune becomes an earworm that stays with you for a good long while afterwards.

Fragmenting into a sonic collage, “Stay On It” had a marvelous way of wandering hear and there, but it finally dwindled to more isolated fragments until it closed out quietly. Some of us in the audience wanted to yell “one, two, three, four!” But we will have to wait until next time. Kahane did hint before the ensemble embarked on the piece that the audience could get up and dance. So who knows, maybe he and his colleagues will try to make that happen sometime in the future.

Today's Birthdays

Sylvius Leopold Weiss (1686-1750)
Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713-1780)
Arthur Nikisch (1855-1922)
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
Healey Willan (1880-1968)
Carlos López Buchardo (1881-1948)
Gilda Dalla Rizza (1892-1975)
Erich Gruenberg (1924-2020)
Pilar Lorengar (1938-1996)
Luciano Pavarotti (1935-2007)
Daryl Runswick (1946)
Penelope Walker (1956)
Chris Botti (1962)

and

Robert Fitzgerald (1910-1985)
Alice Childress (1916-1994)
Robert Coles (1929)

Today's Birthdays

George Bridgetower (1780-1860)
Fernando De Lucia (1860-1925)
R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943)
Albert Stoessel (1894-1943)
Eugene Weigel (1910-1998)
Art Blakey (1919-1990)
David Rendall (1948)

and

Mason Locke Weems (1759-1825)
Eleanor Roosevelt (1883-1962)
Elmore Leonard (1925-2013)
Thich Nhat Hanh (1926-2022)

Preview of OSO concert with Leonard Slatkin and Joshua Roman

 

My preview of the upcoming Oregon Symphony concert includes a discussion with Leonard Slatkin and Joshua Roman. You can read the preview on Oregon ArtsWatch here.

Today's Birthdays

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Vernon Duke (1903-1969)
Paul Creston (1906-1985)
Thelonious Monk (1917-1982)
Gloria Coates (1938-2023)
Sir Willard White (1946)
John Prine (1946-2020)
Steve Martland (1959)
Evgeny Kissin (1971)

and

Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721)
Harold Pinter (1930-2008)

And from The Writer's Almanac:

It’s the birthday of the composer Vernon Duke, born Vladimir Dukelsky, in Parafianovo, Belarus (1903). He was a talented classical musician, educated at an elite conservatory, but his family fled Russia after the revolution and he wound up playing piano in cafés in Constantinople (now Istanbul). From there, his family rode steerage class on a ship to America, went through Ellis Island, and ended up in New York in 1921. There the teenage Dukelsky met George Gershwin, who was only a few years older, and the two became good friends. Dukelsky played Gershwin what he described as “an extremely cerebral piano sonata,” and Gershwin, who was also trained in classical music, suggested this: “There’s no money in that kind of stuff, and no heart in it, either. Try to write some real popular tunes — and don’t be scared about going low-brow. They will open you up.” He also suggested that Dukelsky shorten his name, as he himself had done — Gershowitz to Gershwin. So Vladimir Dukelsky came up with the name Vernon Duke, but he didn’t use it for a while.

First, he went to Paris. There, he met and impressed the great ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev. Dukelsky wrote later about their first meeting — that Diaghilev had drawled: “‘Ah, a good-looking boy. That in itself is most unusual. Composers are seldom good-looking; neither Stravinsky nor Prokofiev ever won any beauty prizes. How old are you?’ I told him I was 20. ‘That’s encouraging, too. I don’t like young men over 25.’” And so Diaghilev commissioned him to write a ballet, and he wrote Zephire et Flore, with sets by Georges Braque, choreography by Léonide Massine, and costumes by Coco Chanel. It got a great reception, and Dukelsky was taken in by the not-quite-as-good-looking Stravinsky and Prokofiev. For a few years he divided his time between Paris, where he continued to write classical music, and London, where he wrote show tunes and used the name Vernon Duke. Then in 1929, he decided to go back to America, and he wrote some of the biggest hits of the 1930s — “April in Paris” (1932), “Autumn in New York” (1934), “I Can’t Get Started” (1936), and “Taking a Chance on Love” (1940). And he wrote the music for the Broadway show and film Cabin in the Sky (1940). By that time, he had become an American citizen and officially changed his name to Vernon Duke.

Preview of first Portland Baroque concert with its new AD, Julian Perkins

 

My preview of the upcoming PBO season opener with its new artistic director, Julian Perkins, is now online at Oregonlive here. It will appear in the print edition this Friday.

Today's Birthdays

Alexander Siloti (1863-1945)
Harry Lawrence Freeman (1869-1954)
Carl Flesch (1873-1944)
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
Roger Goeb (1914-1997)
Einojuhani Routavaara (1928-2016)
Alfons Kontarsky (1932-2010)
John Lennon (1940-1980)
Jackson Browne (1948)
Sally Burgess (1953)
Roberto Sierra (1953)

and

Ivo Andrić (1892-1975)
Bruce Catton (1899-1978)
Léopold (Sédar) Senghor (1906-2001)
Belva Plain (1915-2010)
Jill Ker Conway (1934)
James Howe McClure (1939-2006)

Today's Birthdays

Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672)
Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
Will Vodery (1885-1951)
Paul V. Yoder (1908-1990)
James Sample (1910-1995)
Kurt Redel (1918-2013)
Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996)
Johnny Ramone (1948-2004)
Robert Saxton (1953)
Carl Vine (1954)
Tabea Zimmermann (1968)
Bruno Mantovani (1974)

and

John Cowper Powys (1872-1963)
Walter Lord (1917-2002)
Philip Booth (1925-2007)
R.L. Stine (1943)
Elizabeth Tallent (1954)

Oregon Symphony unleashes spectacular performance of Mahler's First Symphony

The Oregon Symphony unleashed a stellar performance (September 30) with works by Mahler, Saint-Saëns, and Ravel, plus a world premiere by Gabriel Kahane. The audience heard top-tier music making from everyone on the stage, including young virtuoso violinist Benjamin Beilman, who, by the way, has dazzled Chamber Music Northwest audiences.

But the highlight of the evening was the orchestra’s playing of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, which was spectacular from the first downbeat of Music Director David Danzmayr to the glorious finale. The huge palette of sonic colors from all sections of the orchestra – with extra kudos to the woodwinds, horns, and brass – made the performance absolutely top of the world.

In particular, the true pianissimos that Danzmayr and company were able execute were awe-inspiring. The sound decayed down to almost nothing and that made the ensuing crescendos – going into triple forte-land – all the more thrilling. And this happened not just once. It showed a mastery of control and communal thinking that is a hallmark of a great orchestra. The end effect is that even a jaded listener like me becomes so swept up in listening to the music making that it turns into a metaphysical-elevating experience. When the horn section stood up for the grand finale, it all just seemed like a natural extension of Danzmayr and Mahler and God-knows-what. A storm of applause and cheers followed the finale. Even my friends in the hall just couldn’t believe how terrific and inspiring it was.

It was a good thing that the featured soloist, violinist Benjamin Beilman, appeared before the Mahler. Beilman, age 33, delivered Saint-Saëns’ “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso” with scintillating verve. He shaped each line exquisitely with impeccable articulation and intonation even when the tempo was in the fast lane, and you cannot believe how fast his fingers were flying across the strings of his Ysaÿe Guarneri del Gesù.

Beilman followed the Saint-Saëns with an incisive performance of Ravel’s Tzgane, the gypsy-inflected piece that features a devilishly tricky opening cadenza. Beilman played it with virtuosic intensity, contrasting full-bodied phrases with others that were delicate and wistful. After the orchestra joined in, he again made outrageously technical passages look easy peasy going faster and faster to the brilliant conclusion.

His performance generated enthusiastic, sustained applause, which brought him back to center stage several time. He responded with a lovely encore, the Largo from Bach’s Third Sonata for Solo Violin.

The concert opened with the world premiere of “Judith” by Gabriel Kahane, who is the orchestra’s Creative Chair. I was somewhat confused by the program notes that Kahane provided for this piece. He explained how it was based on a song that he had written years earlier that described fictional older woman looking back on her life, and the lyrics were quite wistful and melancholy. So, I was prepared for an odd, slightly sad number, but what Kahane uncorked was a delightfully lively opener with the woodwinds creating tunes that wandered around each other, trumpets that let out brief squeals and beboppy phrases, strings eliciting sonic shivers, a percussion section generating an array of sounds (including a cow bell (an almglocken nod to Mahler), and snippets of melody that would pop up here and there. The piece built to a crescendo and then suddenly stopped. It seemed that the lady who wanted “one last dance” really kicked up her heels.

I am still getting used to Danzmayr’s new arrangement of the orchestra with the horns on the left side, the cellos out of the front right side, the violas on the right and inside (next to the cellos), and some of the second violins spread into the center. It seems that the ensemble is making better use of the new acoustical setting – or maybe my ears are getting more comfortable with it.

Based on what I have heard at this concert and at previous Mahler concerts with Danzmayr and this orchestra, I’d have to say that Danzmayr and his charges are able to channel into the vision of this composer at a level that few others can do. Consequently, you get a life-enhancing experience that you’ll remember forever. So, the next time Danzmayr and OSO team up to play Mahler, be sure not to miss it.

Today's Birthdays

William Billings (1746-1800)
Joe Hill (1879-1915)
Shura Cherkassky (1911-1995)
Charles Dutoit (1936)
John Mellencamp (1951)
Yo-Yo Ma (1955)
Li Yundi (1982)

and

James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916)
Niels Bohr (1885-1962)
Helen Clark MacInnes (1907-1985)
Desmond Tutu (1931-2021)
Amiri Baraka (aka LeRoi Jones) (1934-2014)
Thomas Keneally (1935)
Dianne Ackerman (1948)
Sherman Alexie (1966)

Today's Birthdays

William Bradbury (1816-1868)
Jenny Lind (1820-1887)
Julia Culp (1880-1970)
Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937)
Maria Jeritza (1887-1982)
Edwin Fischer (1886-1960)
Paul Badura-Skoda (1927-2019)
Dennis Wicks (1928-2003)
Udo Zimmermann (1943)
Keith Lewis (1950)

and

Le Corbusier (1887-1965)
Caroline Gordon (1895-1981)

From the Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1600 that the opera Euridice was first performed, at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. It is the oldest surviving opera.

Euridice was performed for the wedding celebrations of Henry IV of France and Maria de' Medici. It was written by Jacopo Peri, a beloved composer and singer. He had already written Dafne a few years earlier, which is considered to be the first opera, but that music has been lost.

Euridice is a retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, in which the gifted musician Orpheus falls in love with the beautiful Eurydice, but just after their wedding she is bitten by a snake and dies. Orpheus is heartbroken, and he journeys to the underworld, to Hades, to try to bring her back. He charms the king of the underworld, also named Hades, and his wife, Persephone, and they agree to return Eurydice to Orpheus on one condition: that he get all the way back to the upper world without looking back to see if Eurydice is following. He almost makes it, but right as he is walking out into the sunlight he turns back, and Eurydice is still in the underworld, so he loses her forever. Peri not only wrote the opera, but he sang the role of Orpheus. The climax of the opera came during "Funeste piagge," or "Funeral shores," when Orpheus begs Hades and Persephone to release his beloved.

Peri wrote a long preface to Euridice, in which he explained the new musical form he was working in, which we now call opera. He said that he was trying to write the way he imagined the Greeks would have, combing music and speech into the ultimate form of drama. One of the people who came to Florence to see Euridice was Vincenzo Gonzaga, the Duke of Mantua. And he probably brought his servant, Claudio Monteverdi. A few years later, in 1607, Monteverdi premiered his first opera, L'Orfeo, which was also a retelling of the legend of Orpheus. Monteverdi elevated the opera form to new heights, and L'Orfeo is considered the first truly great opera, with all of the dramatic orchestration and lyrics that are so central to the drama.

Today's Birthdays

Cyril Bradley Rootham (1875-1938)
Jürgen Jürgens (1925-1994)
John Downey (1927-2004)
Iwan Edwards (1937-2022)
Ken Noda (1962)

and

Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
Helen Churchill Candee (1858-1949)
Flann O’Brien (1911-1966)
Václav Havel (1936-2011)
Edward P. Jones (1950)
Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958)
Maya Ying Lin (1959)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1930, The New York Philharmonic begins its famous series of weekly Sunday afternoon national broadcasts with a program from Carnegie Hall conducted by Erich Kleiber. The first-ever radio broadcast of the New York Philharmonic had occurred on August 12, 1922, when a summer-time concert from Lewisohn Stadium conducted by Willem van Hoogstraten was relayed locally over WJZ in New York.

My note: Willem van Hoogstraten was the conductor of the Portland Symphony (former name of the Oregon Symphony) from 1925 to 1938.

Today's Birthday

Fanny Tacchinardi‑Persiani (1812-1867)
Alain Daniélou (1907-1994)
Alain Lombard (1940)
Richard Wilson (1941)
John Aler (1949)
Fransico Araiza (1950)
Marc Minkowski (1962)
David Dzubay (1964)

and

Frederic Remington (1861-1909)
Damon Runyan (1880-1946)
Buster Keaton (1895-1966)
Brenden Gill (1914-1997)
Jackie Collins (1937-2015)
Roy Blount Jr. (1941)
Anne Rice (1941)

And from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1921, the American Academy in Rome awards American composer Leo Sowerby its first two-year composition fellowship. American composer Howard Hanson was awarded the second two-year composition fellowship on November 9, 1921. The third fellowship was awarded to Randall Thompson on June 6, 1922. The fellowship awards continue to this day.

Preview of Oregon Symphony's minimalism concert with Garbriel Kahane in The Oregonian

Gabriel Kahane has put together an interesting concert centered on minimalism that the Oregon Symphony will perform this Friday. My preview of the concert is in Oregonlive here and will be in print edition this Friday.

Fear No Music Review up at Oregon ArtsWatch

 I attended a two-day series of lectures and concerts as part of Fear No Music's 32nd season, and wrote a review for Oregon ArtsWatch. You can read it here.

Today's Birthdays

Antoine Dauvergne (1713-1797)
Stanisław Skrowaczewski (1923-2017)
Steve Reich (1936)
Shiela Silver (1946)

and

Emily Post (1873-1960)
Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938)
Harvey Kurtzman (1924-1993)
Gore Vidal (1925-2012)

Today's Birthdays

Frantisek Tuma (1704-1774)
Henry Février (1875-1957)
Leroy Shield (1893-1962)
Francis Jackson (1917)
Mary Jeanne van Appledorn (1927-2014)
Kenneth Leighton (1929-1988)
Michel Plasson (1933)
Phill Niblock (1933)
Peter Frankl (1935)
Ton Koopman (1944)
Jonathan Summers (1946)

and

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
Groucho Marx (1890-1977)
Graham Greene (1904-1991)
Jan Morris (1926-2020)

Today's Birthdays

J. Friedrich Eduard Sobolewski (1808-1872)
Henry Clay Work (1832-1884)
Paul Dukas (1865-1935)
Vladimir Horowitz (1904-1989)
Sylvano Bussotti (1931)

and

Jimmy Carter (1924)
Tim O'Brien (1946)

and from the Composers Datebook:

This day in 1924 marked the opening of The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, funded by a gift of $12.5 million from the American patroness Mary Louise Curtis Bok, who had inherited her fortune from the Curtis Publishing Company. The faculty, providing instruction for 203 students, included Leopold Stokowski and Josef Hofmann heading conducting and piano departments, respectively. Polish-born coloratura Marcella Sembrich. Hungarian violinist Carl Flesch. French-born harpist/composer Carlos Salzedo. and Italian composer Rosario Scalero.