Oberon's Glade

Tag: Weill Hall

  • Ensemble Connect @ Weill Hall

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    ~ Author: Scoresby

    Monday October 23rd, 2017 – In Carnegie Hall’s intimate Weill Hall, I attended an eclectic concert of American music performed by Ensemble Connect (formerly Ensemble ACJW). For those that do not know, Ensemble Connect is according to the Carnegie Hall website “a program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education.”  Each member is a two-year fellow who performs, teaches, and educates mainly (but not exclusively) in NYC. The Carnegie Hall and Paul Hall (at Juilliard) series of performances are always interesting, as the ensemble typically plays adventurous mixes of chamber music repertoire. 

    I was excited to see the program began with the wonderful clarinetist Yonnah Kim and the colorful pianist Lee Dione performing the Bernstein Sonata for Clarinet and Piano. While I had never heard the sonata before, I remembered Ms. Kim from her excellent performance last year in Golijov’s The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind. The sonata is divided into two movements, the first being having a relatively dissonant skittering melody reminiscent of Hindemith. The second is more in the mode of Bernstein’s popular style, with jazzy sections. I couldn’t help but wonder if Bernstein had been listening to the Rite of Spring when composing the piece, there are a few allusions throughout the sonata. 

    Ms. Kim captured the oscillating clarinet in the first movement part well with a clear, mysterious sound – managing to shade the lower register parts of the work with a dusty timbre. In the second movement, she added flair to the jazzy sections making them come to life. Mr. Lee managed to capture the mood well with subtle dynamic phrasing and finesse in the rhythmic sections. While I can’t say I was fond of the sonata musically, both players sounded as if they had playing together for years.

    After the sonata, Mr. Dione gave a short speech tying together the wide-ranging program; highlighting the need for distinct American voices to be heard. The second piece on the program was Missy Mazzoli’s Still Life with Avalanche, which is for flute (Rosie Gallagher), clarinet doubling as bass clarinet (Yoonah Kim), violin (Adelya Nartadjieva), viola (Andrew Gonzalez), cello (Madeline Fayette), piano (Lee Dione), percussion (Brandon Ilaw), and 3 harmonicas. The work begins with the harmonicas and strings creating an atmospheric drone that is then interrupted by the bass clarinet and piano. These interruptions build and become more frequent until the piece takes shape. It sounds like a mix of a few genres ranging from rock to contemporary classical. The players all gave a committed performance, embracing each different style of music and coordinating well. 

    The last piece on the brief first half of the program was Copland’s Sextet for clarinet (Yoonah Kim), violins (Rebecca Anderson and Adelya Nartadjieva), viola (Andrew Gonzalez), cello (Julia Yang), and piano (Mika Sasaki). The piece is a reduction of Copland’s Short Symphony, though I hadn’t heard either before. The writing is densely packed with complex rhythms, jazzy riffs, and lyrical melodies. It is an excellent piece, though there is almost too much to listen to in the first movement. Despite the difficulty of getting the timing correct on this piece, the ensemble seemed very together capturing the nervous trudging quality of the opening. Balance-wise, it was a pleasure to hear Ms. Yang’s resonant voice, she seemed to capture the bouncing character of the piece well. It keeps its momentum all the way until the first chords of the second movement. There is a dramatic shift to a quiet chorale-like second movement, which slowly builds in intensity. The strings did a good job of providing a resonant sound, contrasting the first movement well. The finale is a more calculated cacophony that really emphasizes jazzy rhythms and slides. Duets between Ms. Kim and the various strings provided a light and entertaining sound.

    The second half of the program was devoted to one of Steve Reich’s most important works: Different Trains. The piece is for a quartet and tape (sound engineer Benjamin Furiga assisting in this performance); the quartet consisting of Adelya Nartadjieva on first violin, Rebecca Anderson on second violin, Andrew Gonzalez on viola, and Madeline Fayette on cello. The tape has tracks of trains, the speech of holocaust survivors from interviews with Mr. Reich, and a taped quartet. The music and the speech imitate each other creating a hybrid between speech and music through the three movements of the piece. While certainly an important milestone in 20th century classical music and a well-crafted composition, I’ve never had an affinity for this piece. It seemed particularly strange to hear such an emotional work about the holocaust and the aftermath of World War II in Weill Hall’s intimate grandiloquent setting with gold trimming and a beautiful chandelier. 

    Nonetheless, the musicians executed the performance well, keeping their place despite the fact that there seemed to be technical issues with the spoken part of the tape (while audible some of the time, it seemed to cut in and out at times making it hard to follow). They all seemed invested in the music and it showed: many audience members around me were bobbing their heads to the hypnotic speech/rhythms. I appreciate that Ensemble Connect goes after diverse sets of repertoire that typically wouldn’t be programmed together, especially when the playing is as high caliber as it was this evening.

    ~ Scoresby

  • Violinist Simone Lamsma @ Weill Hall

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    Above: Simone Lamsma, photographed by Otto Van Toorn
     
    {Note: As I continue to cope with a severe lower back episode, please welcome guest-writer Scoresby, who will be covering some events in my absence and – hopefully – will continue to write for this blog in the future so that we may – between the two of us – cover even more concerts.}  
     
    Thursday March 30th, 2017 – The violinist Simone Lamsma performed a well-programmed Carnegie debut at Weill Hall with pianist Robert Kulek.

    While a well-known composer for his orchestral music, this was the first time I have heard a James Macmillan piece. It was a welcome introduction to his sound world. His Sonata for Violin and Piano, “Before the Tryst” is a 15-minute piece in one-movement that cycles through many different moods and colors. At its heart is a setting that Macmillan wrote in the early 1980’s of the Scottish poet William Soutar’s “The Tryst”. Previously, Macmillan used a melody from the setting in a shorter violin and piano work called “After the Tryst”.

    “Before the Tryst” initiates with a whisper of violin harmonics and the percussive, almost inaudible, high reaches of the piano. Percussion and rhythm are vital to this piece – it almost feels like dance music. There are many trills (reminiscent of the opening of the Prokofiev sonata), slides, tone clusters, and other well used devices to paint a colorful canvas. While tonal, there are plenty of delicious dissonances.

    There are sections of lyric quiet punctuated with aggressively anxious lines. Fittingly, it reminded me of a young person anxiously falling into an all consuming love, feeling both drawn-in and cut off at the same time. It is certainly a worthwhile entry into the violin repertoire.

    Ms. Lamsma managed to dramatically capture all of the rhythms, particularly near the end. She played with a wonderfully scratchy, Stravinsky-esque tone. Mr. Kulek complemented this with a warm tone. The piece ends with a section of the violin hostilely interjecting long pauses until only the silence remains.

    Prokofiev Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 80 is one of my favorite pieces of music, so it is always a pleasure to hear a live performance. It is a later Prokofiev piece started in the backdrop of the Great Terror in 1938 and completed in 1946 – David Oistrakh and Samuel Feinberg performed the first and third movements at his funeral seven years later.

    Ms. Lamsma’s crafted a sarcastic edge and raspiness that served the piece well. In the first movement, she did an excellent job of keeping space and quiet within the piece – if played too quickly it can lose its brooding mood. One of the most successful parts of her recital was Ms. Lamsma’s virtuosic playing and fast tempo in the second movement. Mr. Kulek let loose in the fortissimos creating an urgent mood.

    In the third movement, Ms. Lamsma’s mute on the instrument along with her tone, almost made her sound like the ghostly playing of a 1940’s record. This movement is Prokofiev in one of his most impressionist idioms. As I was listening, I could almost imagine the static from an LP and sounds of rain patting a window on a dreary day. The last movement ended the sonata with fast, rhythmic pulses, which finally gave way to one last whispering statement of the first movement.

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    Above: Robert Kulek, photo by Brabander Fotografie

    After the intermission was Strauss’s Violin Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 18. While I personally have never had an affinity for this piece, this reading did make me see how important the piece was to Strauss’s development for his later symphonic poems. The piece is written in three movements with a dense piano part that the violin soars over.

    Ms. Lamsma gave a muscular performance in all three movements, though managed to have still a spontaneous flair in the second movement. The violin playing had a warmer, fuller tone in the Strauss. At many points, particularly in the first and third movements, I felt as if this piece would work well as a concerto because the piano part has so much bundled in. Nonetheless, Mr. Kulek managed to give a transparent reading, with notably sensitive playing in the second movement.

    The romance of the Strauss balanced the heavier first half of the program well. Clearly this young artist has an eye for thoughtful programming. As an encore, the artists treated the audience to a bonbon in the form of Samuel Dushkin’s “Sicilienne” (after Romanze from Weber’s Violin Sonata, Op. 10, No. 1).

    ~ Scoresby