Chamber Music Northwest presents two world-premieres plus Mozart and Messiaen

The graceful and effortless motion of birds taking flight and swirling upward into the heavens was artfully conveyed in Kenji Bunch’s “Vesper Flight” by flutist Tara Helen O’Connor and pianist Monica Ohuchi in its world premiere performance on Saturday, July 10th, at Kaul Auditorium as part of the Chamber Music Northwest summer festival. Inspired by the common swift, a species of bird noted for its evening ascent to very high altitudes where it flies for long periods of time, “Vesper Flight” exuded a series of climbing runs that evoked a flock on its way into the skies. As a kind of underlayment against the rising, fluttering tones, Ohuchi would lay down a bass line that may have been quoting Purcell’s “Evening Hymn.” (In his introductory remarks, Bunch said that he would quote from that Purcell piece), nicely tying a bow around the idea of a vesper prayer, which typically takes place at sundown. A rhapsodic passage ended with a loud, high sound from the flute followed by a whispery whistle that faded wonderfully into the distance, like swifts disappearing beyond the clouds.

“Vesper Flight” was preceded by a mesmerizing performance of “Louange à l’immortalité de Jésus” (“Praise for the Immortality of Jesus”) from Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time.” Violinist Bella Hristova and pianist Gloria Chien (who is CMNW’s co-artistic director) created a soulful yet refined sound that transcended time and space. Absolutely ethereal!

David Ludwig’s “Les Adieux,” written in honor of David Shifrin, who helmed CMNW for 40 years and is now its Artistic Director Emeritus, featured clarinetist Shifrin as the soloist surrounded by a chamber orchestra of 17 musicians under the baton of Earl Lee. Divided into three movements: The Farewell, The Absence, and The Return, “Les Adieux” started with Shifrin modulating above and beyond his colleagues, who created a sound that was muffled and clouded in descending lines. This overall concept persevered into the next movement as well with Shifrin flawlessly executing a number of sustained runs and notes that he seemed to hold forever while the orchestra finally got to play an optimistic rising series of notes. In the last movement the pace quickens for a while but again settled into another slow dance that ended with Shifrin exhibiting incredible breath control with several long notes. Overall, it seemed that the piece didn’t really go anywhere, but it did showcase Shifrin’s amazing virtuosic talent.

An all-star ensemble gave a superb performance of Mozart’s “Viola Quintet in C Major” (K. 515) to close out the concert. Violinists Soovin Kim (who is also CMNW’s co-artistic director) and Rebecca Anderson, violists Paul Neubauer and Paul Laraia, and cellist Fred Sherry polished this gem of a piece with verge and terrific artistry. Highlights included the lovely conversational quality between Kim and Sherry in the first movement, the refined ebb and flow of the second with Sherry masterfully finishing phrases, Neubauer’s poignant viola solo and elegant duet with Kim in the third, and the robust and joyful playing by the entire ensemble – with pinpoint pauses – in the final movement. Kudos to the musicians for outstanding balance and dynamics throughout. Bravi!

Still, for this reviewer, it was the Messiaen piece that stuck with me the most and makes me want to hear it again and again and again.

Innovative Programming and Stellar Artistry at the Oregon Symphony

Marc-André Hamelin

An interesting, if not too surprising, phenomenon of note at Oregon Symphony concerts (as is true at any major symphony I'm sure) is the 'post-hit desertion.' That is to say, if the big, famous, popular work (you know, a Rachmaninov 3 piano concerto or a Dvořák Cello Concerto in B Minor) is played in the first half, then a certain portion of the audience tends to...disappear before the less popular work(s) of the second half. Maestro Kalmar addressed the very fact that the OSO was flipping the traditional concert order on its head by playing the big symphony first, then the concerto and overture-like works last. So as it was, everyone who wanted to hear Ravel's Bolero had the great pleasure of sitting through the marvelous, lesser-known offerings by Dutilleux, Messaien, and  (arguably) Franz Liszt.

Opening with Henri Dutilleux's Symphony No. 1 was a bold stroke for the OSO, and it worked out well. The at-first-barely audible string pizzicato, and its subsequent ingenious passing between sections was deftly handled. The work as a whole was marked by radical contrasts; long, slow singing sections interrupted by thunderous crashes from percussion or brass, and then a sudden, quiet reversion into subtlety. It demanded intensely rhythmic ensemble playing to navigate the tempestuous, moody texture, and a focused approach was necessary to keep interesting the sometimes abstruse tonal (or atonal) musical languages of this mid 20th century piece. The OSO certainly had the skills to navigate all those challenges.

Olivier Messaien's Oiseaux exotiques  (Exotic Birds) was a startling change. Consisting of winds, percussion and piano, it was patterned after the songs of 18 birds from around the world. Messaien, a bird-lover himself, could clearly articulate not only the bird song but convey images of hopping, dancing, flitting and strange avian rituals that only a bird-enthusiast and accomplished composer could so convey. Pianist Marc-André Hamelin had an interesting role: pouncing, plunking, thundering and whispering delicacy were all called for. The dizzying amount of coordination between the percussion and winds, especially at such a sustained and rapid-fire pace, was amazing to behold. Precision, rapt concentration and lightning execution were all present in this stunning, boiling euphony.

The second half opened with Liszt's Todtentanz for Piano and Orchestra.  The opening, menacing theme, at which death seems to stride the world, immense and unchallenged, gave way to scintillating brilliance on the part of Hamelin. Suddenly he displays a jolly, crisp and brilliant staccato, firing away exacting glissandi one after another. He then plays with such cantabile tenderness in the quasi-fugal portion, a feeling like retiring into death's cool embrace. The astonishing amount of technical accomplishment alone, to say nothing of his artistry--Hamelin had every bit of the chops and then some; for much of this piece he was a one-man orchestra.

Ravel's Bolero was the grand finale. The bassoon in particular rendered the theme splendid and saucy. It was great fun to see an army of violinists and violists holding their axes like small guitars, plucking away. The piccoli had some difficulty with the doublings, but it was a small blemish. Kudos to the snare drummer and his rock-solid rhythm, the only player to hit every single beat from the first to the last. The percussion section and winds in particular were spectacular all evening; it is a joy to listen to such top-notch performers night after night with the OSO.