Today's Birthdays

Thomas Campion (1567-1620)
Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760-1812)
Roy Harris (1898-1979)
Franco Zeffirelli (1923-2019)
Mel Powell (1923-1998)
Paata Burchuladze (1951)

and

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
Max Beckmann (1884-1950)
Judy Bloom (1938)

And courtesy of the New Music Box:

On February 12, 1924 at New York's Aeolian Hall, self-named 'King of Jazz' Paul Whiteman presented An Experiment in Modern Music, a concert combining "high art" and "hot jazz." The concert featured newly commissioned works from Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern, Edward MacDowell, Irving Berlin, Ferde Grofé, and Rudolf Friml, but the highlight of the program was the world premiere performance of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Review of Newport Symphony concert featuring Rachel Barton Pine

Guest review by Joshua Lickteig

NEWPORT, Ore. — As crisp as the cool sunny sea of January’s 17th day this year in Newport, the only year-round symphony of Oregon’s coast played a program of works spanning the 20th century, in a chronology that progressed from impressionism to post-minimalism and looped back to the late Romantic. Unifying the thread, each work has clear roots in dance, even if at times more about the idea of dancing than act itself.

Falla’s folk-musical remnants of pre-urban life, Stravinsky’s sometimes wry polystylistic assemblage of former worlds from scraps of evidence, Adams’ meta-foxtrot depicting Mao and Madame Mao perhaps in a ballroom during the Cultural Revolution, and the brief motivic interlacings and lilts and waltz-like qualities of lyrical sections of Glazunov.

The night began with a light though pensive mood altogether as music director and conductor Adam Flatt addressed the audients of the 371-seat (Alice Silverman) proscenium theatre, nearly seven-eighths full. In his preconcert talk, Flatt (also director of Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra and Colorado Ballet), considered the early 1900s as discourse amongst composers, exploring the personal worlds, styles of life, and artistic methods of the era’s and its preceding ‘große Persönlichkeiten’, or big personalities. Onstage, the emerald-green chairs and purple-lit glow from behind white acoustic panels was giving ethereally to the room.

Rachel Barton Pine – acclaimed violinist known for dazzling performance across repertoires, who debuted with the Chicago Symphony at age 10 and became the first American and youngest gold medal winner of the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition – joined the discussion with her instrument, a 1742 Guarneri del Gesù violin, which she jested one day would be called the ‘ex-Pine’ (it has illustrious history with virtuosos like Antonio Bazzini and Brahms’s protégé Marie Soldat and passed through the Wittgenstein family). She talked amiably with the concertgoers and noted, “I love variety. My favorite piece is whatever I’m playing that night.” About Concerto for Violin in A Minor, Op. 82 by Alexander Glazunov (b. 1865), the featured soloist shared, “It is a wild romp of lots of colorful instruments . . . Incredible lyrical writing.” Pine first learned the work at the age of fifteen and has recorded its performance with the Russian National Orchestra. She spoke about the overall flow of the piece, its micro-details of phrasing and the violin’s imitation of other instruments; also of a secondary theme that weaves through the opening and middle sections, while loose hints of cadenza seek their culmination in the finale’s accelerated and exhilarating conclusion. On the notorious finger-twisting solo passage, Pine mentioned it requires about as much practice as the rest of the concerto itself, and added, “There is no coincidence [the notes] are all in that rich dark [lowest] G-string.”

After the talk, Executive Director Dan Howard reminded the crowd of a baroque event, “Music On the Bayfront”, on Valentine’s Day (a Saturday), at Pacific Maritime Heritage Center, which will showcase harpsichord and period instruments, and the upcoming annual Gala March 28th. From the string section, in a get-to-know-the-orchestra moment, he introduced violinist Alistair Kok, who expressed appreciation for the arts community’s support and the fulfilling experience of working professionally with local and regional musicians.

Spanish Dance No. 1 from La vida Breve, which Flatt earlier called a ‘bonbon’, whirs by, and its derivations of fiery flamenco and ‘zapateado’ (footwork) with the castanets give a glimpse of (b. 1876) Manuel de Falla’s creative philosophy and patriotic aesthetic; he is known to have urged colleagues to reject the notion of ‘universal’ musical formulae (i.e. the ethos of pre-existing German canon).

Next, the orchestra exhibits Pulcinella: what Flatt voiced critics would call “a new postwar objectivism— dispensing with romantic notions of expressing the heart.” It was performed last by the NSO in mid-November 2008. Igor Stravinsky (b.1882) presents the matter of old music, not the manner — “almost a taxidermied animal ”—  through discontinuity, irregularities, and sometimes angularities. Commissioned by impresario Sergei Diaghilev as a ballet (with Picasso designing costumes and sets), the 1920 work reimagines 18th-century music through a distinctly modern lens. To better suit for concert performance, Stravinsky revised it in 1947. Throughout the suite (I-VII) the orchestra embraced its moments of hilarity: rude sounds and clownishness punctuate sprightly string bass solos across many short movements. They unfolded the finale like an actual memory in the glimmer of winter frost, perhaps reaching back to folksongs and dances from Stravinsky’s childhood near the Polish-Ukrainian border. Utterances could be heard in the crowd lamenting the extant era’s continued power of myth.

Beyond intermission, the symphony brings a focused and scientific precision to The Chairman Dances, from the cutting-room floor of one of our most prominent living composers, John Adams’ (b. 1947) opera Nixon in China. The 13-minute concert piece differs in orchestration from the operatic setup. The entire work, as Flatt put it, belongs to the “so-called CNN operas”—works depicting modern historical events. This foxtrot is a surreal fantasy sequence from a presidential banquet, where Madame Mao hangs paper lanterns, changes into a tight cheongsam slit up the hip, and signals the orchestra to play before dancing alone. As Mao descends from his portrait to join her, days past are brought to their minds, and music plays on a gramophone. The NSO brilliantly conjured the wind-up and gradual slowdown of the contraption: the perceived music skips as the stylus gets stuck, and in the suspension of coherent sound, the sizzle with cymbal shimmers, pedal bass drum, and hi-hat snare are mechanical in quality yet awake. The whole percussion batterie—including triangle, glockenspiel, xylophone, vibraphone, crotales, bell tree, castanets, sandblocks, woodblocks, and timpani—functioned with excellence. An almost-hidden 9-foot Steinway Grand D tucked behind the harp anchored textures.

In Glazunov’s dramatic (and unpausing) concerto of wreathed themes the orchestra and soloist exchanged ideas smoothly and affectionately. Pine’s playing was spellbinding. For an encore, she offered Maud Powell’s 1919 violin transcription of the spiritual Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen, originally arranged by J. Rosamond Johnson. The pioneering American violinist Powell created this adaptation to support Johnson’s New York Music School Settlement for Colored People, featuring it in her final performances. Pine’s revival of this work honors Powell’s legacy.

Musicians met with listeners after the performance in the lobby, where refreshments & sandwiches were served, and Pine greeted and spoke with many. The 37th season continues its standard programming with “Listening for Shakespeare” March 21st-22nd.

Joshua D. Lickteig is an artist and engineer born near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His latest books are Half Moon Day Sun (2021) and Ten Control Mills (2015), some poems from which appeared in Don Russell’s plays Dreams of Drowning (2022) and iTopia (2016). He lives in Portland, Oregon, and is an ongoing contributor to the Concordia News.

Today's Birthdays

Rudolf Firkušný (1912-1994)
Sir Alexander Gibson (1926-1995)
Michel Sénéchal (1927-2018)
Cristopher Dearnley (1930-2000)
Jerome Lowenthal (1932)
Gene Vincent (1935-1971)
Edith Mathis (1938-2025)
Alberto Lysy (1935-2009)
Christine Cairns (1959)

and

Thomas Edison (1847-1931)
Elizabeth Bisland (1861-1929)
Philip Dunne (1908-1992)
Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909-1993)
Pico Iyer (1957)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1841, was given the first documented American performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 at the New York's Broadway Tabernacle, by the German Society of New York, Uri Corelli Hill conducting.

Review: A Night of Light and Color: Oregon Symphony’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Bruch Violin Concerto, and Anna Clyne’s Color Field

Photo credit: Oregon Symphony

Guest review by Thomas Meinzen

Amid Portland’s winter light festival, it seemed fitting that the Oregon Symphony began their Pictures at an Exhibition program (February 7) with the bright hues Yellow, Red, and Orange in the three-movement Color Field by Anna Clyne.

Clyne’s work references Mark Rothko’s 1961 painting Orange, Red, Yellow, in which bright, blurred rectangles appear to float off the page, each distorting how the audience views the color above and below. Likewise, Clyne’s first movement, Yellow, seemed to float into the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, with open chords and quiet, subtly shifting strings. Silvered with high notes of bowed crotales, Yellow conjured the spacious, ethereal feeling of early morning light.

Building in richness and grandeur, the movement introduced a Serbian folk melody in the deep movement of the basses, conjuring images of something great and old emerging from shadow into light. Adopted by the higher strings and winds, this melody lent the piece increasing shape and structure, while still maintaining the meditative impression of a great, open vista. In many ways, the piece captured the qualities of light in a way that was more tender and transcendent than the festival’s displays. Sometimes the description outshines the real thing.

Following Yellow, Red was joltingly fast and furious, with rumbling timpani and bass drums, strings screaming down scales, and declarations of fiery brass. Stampeding advances alternated with moments of calm, crescendo-ing to a bold, sudden conclusion.

Yet it was Orange, the third and final movement, that proved most captivating. The resonance and reverb of percussionist Stephen Kehner’s work on the glockenspiel was the signature of this movement, bookending it with a mystical sense of space and color. An incremental layering of voices began with the oboe and swelled to include nearly every member of the orchestra, bringing the open feeling of Yellow into conversation with the bold intensity of Red. This rounded out an exquisite, contemplative composition.

While the opener left listeners in quiet reverie, the Oregon Symphony truly fulfilled its duty to dazzle with Gil Shaham’s marvelous performance of the Max Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor. The Bruch showcased the delicate touch and remarkable fluidity and energy of the GRAMMY award-winning violinist.

Shaham’s notes emerged tenderly from a backdrop of gently held chords, rising through the orchestra’s sound and flying across virtuosic passages with ease and elegance. As conductor Daniel Danzmayr deftly guided the orchestra from swells of melody to sudden restraint, the clear tones of Shaham’s 1699 “Countess Polignac” Stradivarius soared into the hall, a vector of energy which carried the orchestra to new heights. Shaham himself seemed caught up in the concerto’s vigor, stepping forward into cadenzas and even bouncing on the balls of his feet during the triumphant Finale. And the audience was right there with him, rising to a long standing-ovation after the Bruch and again after Shaham’s encore, the Tempo di Borea and Double from Bach’s Violin Partita No. 1 in B minor—a brilliant display of dexterity, precision, and passion.

Photo credit: Oregon Symphony

 And yet, the night’s titular event was still ahead: Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (arranged by Ravel). As Danzmayr shared, Mussorgsky wrote Pictures as a piano suite after attending an exhibition of the paintings of Viktor Hartmann in 1874, a fellow Russian artist and friend of Mussorgsky who had died the previous year. Never performed publicly in Mussorgsky’s life, Pictures was first published by Rimsky-Korsakov in 1886, and eventually arranged for orchestra by several musical luminaries, most enduringly by Ravel in 1922.

Although it abandons classical forms and was met with skepticism by Mussorgsky’s peers, Pictures at an Exhibition is renowned for good reason. With a bold brass entrance, its grand Promenade theme remains in the ear for days, an asymmetrical meter lending the theme a hook that belies its simplicity. And the whole ten-movement work tugs at the imagination, richly illustrating scenes ranging from the somber and pensive to the playful and strange.

The diverse voices and exposed moments of Pictures also provided a great opportunity for the orchestra to showcase each member’s individual talents and timbre. The haunting alto saxophone solo in The Old Castle was particularly evocative; the tight articulations of muted trumpets in Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle also revealed excellent control. Perhaps most impressive, however, was the performance of tubist JáTtik Clark: after a sensitive euphonium feature in Bydlo, he commanded incredible power in The Hut on Fowl’s Legs and the final expression of the Promenade. I kept looking for additional tubas, but those astounding decibels were all from Clark.

Beyond individual musicianship, however, it was the power of the symphony’s cohesion and collective might that brought down the house in the grand finale, The Great Gate of Kiev, which featured a massive bell from the Netherlands made especially for this concert and engraved for the Oregon Symphony. This final declamatory movement was towering and triumphant, concluding the night and garnering an immediate standing ovation. Under Danzmayr’s leadership, the Oregon Symphony continues to astonish and delight.

Thomas Meinzen is a composer, pianist, writer, and ecologist. Thomas studied music composition and orchestration with John David Earnest and Eric Funk. He has worked across the U.S. and Costa Rica as an avian field biologist and currently teaches natural history, ecology, arboriculture, and music through several local nonprofits, in addition to coordinating Portland tree-planting efforts with Friends of Trees. An avid bicyclist, birder, and public transit advocate, you can find his writing at greenbirder.substack.com and music at thomasmeinzen.bandcamp.com.

Today's Birthdays

Johann Melchior Molter (1696-1765)
Adelina Patti (1843-1919)
Jean Coulthard (1908-2000)
Joyce Grenfell (1914-2001)
Cesare Siepi (1923-2010)
Leontyne Price (1927)
Jerry Goldsmith (1929-2004)
Roberta Flack (1937-2025)
Barbara Kolb (1939-2024)
Yuja Wang (1987)

and

Charles Lamb (1775-1834)
Boris Pasternak (1890-1960)
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956)
Åsne Seierstad (1970)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1921, Charles Ives hears Igor Stravinsky's "The Firebird" Ballet Suite at an all-Russian program by the New York Symphony at Carnegie Hall. Also on the program were works of Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Rachmaninoff (with Rachmaninoff as piano soloist). Walter Damrosch conducted.

Review of Tines-Ruckus concert published in Classical Voice North America

My review of this unique concert is available in CVNA here.

Today's Birthdays

Ferdinando Carulli (1770-1841)
Franz Xaver Witt (1834-1888)
Alban Berg (1885-1935)
Harald Genzmer (1909-2007)
Hildegard Behrens (1937-2009)
Ryland Davies (1943-2023)
Paul Hillier (1949)
Jay Reise (1950)
Marilyn Hill Smith (1952)
Amanda Roocroft (1966)

and

Amy Lowell (1874-1925)
James Stephens (1882-1950)
Brendan Behan (1923-1964)
J.M. (John Maxwell) Coetzee (1940)
Alice Walker (1944)

and from the Composers Datebook:

On this day in 1893, Verdi's opera, "Falstaff," was first performed in Milan at the Teatro alla Scala. This was Verdi's last opera.

Today's Birthdays

Jacob Praetorius (1586-1651)
André Grétry (1741-1813)
Osian Ellis (1928-2021)
John Williams (1932)
Elly Ameling (1933)
Margaret Brouwer (1940)
Stephen Roberts (1948)
Irvine Arditti (1953)

and

Jules Verne (1828-1905)
Kate Chopin (1850-1904)
Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
Neal Cassady (1926-1968)
John Grisham (1955)

and from the Composers Datebook:

1880 - German opera composer Richard Wagner writes a letter to his American dentist, Dr. Newell Still Jenkins, stating "I do no regard it as impossible that I decide to emigrate forever to America with my latest work ["Parsifal"] and my entire family" if the Americans would subsidize him to the tune of one million dollars.

Today's Birthdays

Wilhelm Stenhammar (1871-1927)
Ossip Gabrilovich (1878-1936)
Eubie Blake (1883-1983)
Claudia Muzio (1889-1936)
Quincy Porter (1897-1966)
Edmond De Luca (1909-2004)
Lord Harewood (1923-2011)
Maruis Constant (1925-2004)
Stuart Burrows (1933-2025)
Wolfgang van Schweintz (1953)
Andy Akiho (1979)

and

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)
Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957)
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)
Gay Talese (1932)

Today's Birthdays

Henry Litolff (1818-1891)
Karl Weigl (1881-1949)
Andre Marchal (1894-1980)
Claudio Arrau (1903-1991)
Stephen Albert (1941-1992)
Bob Marley (1945-1981)
Bruce J. Taub (1948)
Matthew Best (1957)
Sean Hickey (1970)

and

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
Eric Partridge (1894-1979)
George Herman "Babe" Ruth (1895-1948)
Mary Douglas Leakey (1913-1996)
Deborah Digges (1950-2009)
Michael Pollan (1955)