Pour le vingtième anniversaire de la disparition du pianiste Vladimir Horowitz, Sony Music Entertainment nous a concocté un double disque compact reprenant quelques interprétations phares du légendaire virtuose qui passionna son public durant plus de six décennies.

Cliquer sur l'image pour connaître la disponibilité du média en Médiathèque

Le premier cd retrace le parcours de l’artiste chez RCA entre 1927 et 1962 tandis que le second nous fait découvrir ou redécouvrir les années passées sous contrat chez Columbia/CBS/Sony jusqu’en novembre 1989 année de sa mort survenue le 5 novembre à New-York.

Qui était ce personnage emblématique que Clara Haskil (pianiste virtuose également) appelait le « Satan du clavier » ou encore que le public berlinois surnomma des 1926 « l’Ouragan des steppes » ?

Né à Kiev (Ukraine) le 1^er octobre 1903, c’est avec sa mère, dès l’âge de six ans,  que le petit Volodia fit ses premiers pas musicaux. A quinze ans il se perfectionne au conservatoire de sa ville natale auprès de Felix Blumenfeld ( pianiste, virtuose, compositeur et pédagogue de renom). Deux ans plus tard, en 1921, Vladimir Horowitz est diplômé et entame une carrière de concertiste qui le mènera aux quatre coins du monde.

Avant tout, il est à retenir de ce début de carrière que Vladimir Horowitz se destinait à la composition et que, la révolution russe priva sa famille de ses avoirs contraignant ce dernier à exercer le métier de concertiste.

Ce que l’on retiendra entre-autre de la carrière de ce personnage charismatique, virtuose et fanfaron à ses heures sont ses interprétations hors du commun d’œuvres des 19 et 20^ème siècle tels Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Prokofiev ou encore Scriabine. A en croire les critiques musicaux de cette première moitié de siècle, entendre Horowitz jouer du piano c’était comme écouter un jeu, une manière d’aborder un texte musical, venant du passé, celui des pianistes romantiques.

Cependant son répertoire ne se limite pas aux « grands classiques » et on lui doit d’avoir réhabilité sur les scènes de concert des compositeurs tels Clémenti ou Moszkowski ou encore de nous avoir fait découvrir les sonates de Scarlatti sous un jour nouveau.

S’il  fréquenta peu de compositeurs vivants, son association avec le pianiste et compositeur Sergeï Rachmaninov ne manque pas d’intérêt. Il est à noté que ce dernier remania certaines de ses œuvres en fonction de la virtuosité de l’interprète Horowitz. D’ailleurs, en ce qui concerne son troisième concerto pour piano, Rachmaninov refusa de continuer à l’interpréter lui même après avoir entendu le jeu d’Horowitz. Cinq versions de ce concerto existent à la Médiathèque par Horowitz et permettent d’entendre, par comparaison, cinq approches sensiblement différentes d’une œuvre par le même interprète à différents moments de sa vie :

 1930 RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra dirigé par Fritz Reiner

1930 London Symphony Orchestra dirigé par Albert Coates

1950 Hollywood Bowl Orchestra dirigé par Serge Koussevitsky

1978 New-York Philarmonic dirigé par Eugène Ormandy

1978 New-York Philarmonic dirigé par Zubin Mehta (en vidéo K7) 

En guise de conclusion, je citerai la phrase du romancier et scénariste anglais James Hilton : « Si par une dispense quelconque, un sourd devait se voir accorder le pouvoir d’entendre pendant une heure seulement, il aurait avantage à la passer en compagnie d’Horowitz. 

Biographie Horowitz par Glenn Plaskin

Post Scriptum: pour ceux d’entre vous qui désirent en savoir plus sur le personnage Horowitz, je ne peux que conseiller la lecture de « Horowitz la biographie » de Glenn Plaskin (trad. franç. de Alain Malraux)  aux Editions Buchet Chastel 1986.

Bonne lecture et bonne écoute – Philippe Cantaert

Parmi ces milliers de cd’s qui nous entourent au quotidien,  difficile parfois de trouver son bonheur. Pourtant, de temps en temps au gré du hasard une belle voix se fait entendre.

Voici une découverte qui fit vibrer les osselets de mon oreille interne au rythme de fréquences fort agréables pour les zones sensibles de mon cortex cérébral.

Quatre compositeurs, quinze chants et une soprane de tout premier ordre pour les interpréter. De quoi vous réchauffer les tympans  pendant que la vodka vous brûle la gorge.

Sergei Rachmaninov     –    Piotr Ilitch Tchaïkovski

Modeste Moussorgski    –    Mikhaïl Ivanovitch Glinka

C’était probablement un acte manqué,  j’étais censé remettre ce disque aujourd’hui avant mes congés de Toussaint,  le cd est resté dans mon lecteur et il vous faudra donc, chers membres, attendre mon retour dans une semaine pour vous abreuver de ce nectar vocal parfumé poivre, citron et miel piments.

A votre santé !

Eddy.

Détails et disponibilité

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Artista: Giovanni Sollima
Titolo: Daydream
Links: PLAY & DOWNLOAD

Artista: Sergei Rachmaninov
Titolo: moment musical op.16 no.4
Links: PLAY & DOWNLOAD

Artista: Johann Sebastian Bach
Titolo: Welltempered Clavier – BWV 855
Links: PLAY & DOWNLOAD

Artista: Sergei Rachmaninov
Titolo: Suite op.5 – Barcarole
Links: PLAY & DOWNLOAD

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Artista: Antonio Vivaldi
Titolo: Concerto C Major for Sopranino – Largo e cantabile.mp4
Links: PLAY & DOWNLOAD

Artista: Johann Sebastian Bach
Titolo: Partita for solo flute in A minor (BWV 1013) 1. Allemande
Links: PLAY & DOWNLOAD

Artista: Marigliano & Bellopede
Titolo: Cafè 1930
Links: PLAY & DOWNLOAD

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Pictures by Gorje Hewek

Y vamos con la segunda obra, con el segundo concierto para piano y orquesta. Esta vez, con el Concierto número 2 para piano y orquesta, Op. 18 de Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943), compuesto entre el otoño de 1900 y abril de 1901. La obra al completo fue estrenada con el compositor como solista, el 27 de octubre de 1901, con su primo Alexander Siloti dirigiendo.

Está escrito en la forma tradicional de concierto de tres movimientos:

Moderato

El movimiento inicial empieza con una serie de acordes en el piano como si de toques de campana se trataran que crean tensión, finalmente llegando a un punto culminante en la introducción del primer tema. En esta primera sección, la orquesta interpreta una melodía de carácter ruso mientras que el piano realiza un acompañamiento consistente en arpegios. Tras el gran primer tema, le sigue una rápida transición hasta que se presenta el segundo tema en mi bemol mayor, mucho más lírico.

El agitado e inestable desarrollo toma motivos de ambos temas cambiando las tonalidades muy a menudo y pasa a varios instrumentos mientras una nueva idea musical se gesta lentamente. La música alcanza un gran clímax como si la obra fuera a repetir los primeros compases de la obra, pero la recapitulación va a ser bastante diferente

Mientras la orquesta repite de nuevo el primer tema, el piano, que la otra vez hacía un papel de acompañamiento, ahora toca un tema de estilo parecido al de una marcha que ya había sido presentado a medias en el desarrollo, de este modo crea un considerable reajuste en la reexposición, como en el tema principal, tocado por la orquesta que se ha convertido en acompañamiento. El resto de la recapitulación es bastante literal.

Adagio sostenuto

El segundo movimiento empieza con una serie de acordes lentos con las cuerdas que modulan del do menor del anterior movimiento a mi mayor. El piano entra tocando una simple figura arpegiada. El tema es introducido por la flauta y luego pasa entre el piano y otros solistas, antes de que la música acelere a un corto clímax centrado sobre el piano. El motivo original se repite, y la música parece extinguirse, acabando con tan sólo el solista.

Allegro scherzando

El último movimiento empieza con una pequeña introducción orquestal que modula de mi mayor a do menor, antes de que el piano solo lo conduzca hacia el agitado primer tema. La excitación muere y el oboe y las violas introducen un tema de gran lirismo. El segundo tema está basado en el segundo tema del primer movimiento. Tras un largo periodo de desarrollo la tensión crece considerablemente. Cerca del final, Rachmaninov recupera el segundo tema en una gran y poderosa orquestación. Finalmente, una rápida coda conduce al concierto a su fin.

Tomorrow is the 136th anniversary of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninov’s day of birth. Radio WRTI is celebrating with a 12-hour marathon of the Rusky ex-pat’s crystal-clear texture and elegant yet strong phrasing.

Rachmaninov is best known for his Prelude in C-sharp minor, which he composed at age 19. He lost his land during the Bolshevik revolution and subsequently fled Russia for the United States, though he was consoled by an estate he managed to buy in Switzerland. He died in 1943, and his wish to be buried at his Swiss estate could never be fulfilled because of the ravages of the Second World War.

Rachmaninov on Rachmaninov, Prelude in C-sharp Minor.

Rachmaninov on Chopin, Nocturne in E-flat.

Mr. Rachmaninov's Neighborhood

…y tampoco debo olvidar al pobre y magnífico Chopin.

El Lobo Estepario . Hermann Hesse

“El alma de la música ha pasado por este mundo”.

Robert Schumann

I was fortunate to be able to sit down with Maestra Falletta this weekend.  Falletta has been in Seattle this past week for a series of three concerts with the Seattle Symphony.  The concerts have been a compelling mix of the seldom heard, a dark showpiece, and a deeply moving requiem by the understated Gabriel Faure.  The chamber version of Gabriel Faure’s Requiem has closed out each of the concerts.  The chamber version, scored for chorus, one violin, minimal violas, cellos, and basses, horns, harp, and organ is the austere predecessor of the more popular version for full orchestra and chorus.  With only one violin, the color of the instrumental writing is much darker.  The violas, led by Arie Schachter, create a lugubrious foundation that is both sad and comforting.  The first half was marked by a full-throttle performance of Ravel’s La Valse and Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.1.

During my conversation with Falletta, I couldn’t help but walk away feeling like she is a musician possessed by great joy in not only making music, but helping people genuinely value, feel, and experience serious music.  We talked about her impressions of the Seattle Symphony, what considerations go into concert programs, the importance of the Buffalo Philharmonic as a professional orchestra in a city decimated by the collapse of the steel and manufacturing industry in the United States, and how music is innate to our existence as people.  Toward the end of the interview, we also chatted briefly about her Grammy Award winning recording of Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan.

You can watch the video after the jump.

Hoy he visitado el cementerio. He visitado a mis padres. Entre grandes copos de nieve avancé por entre las tumbas hasta alcanzar el patio del Santo Entierro. Miré al cielo y por unos momentos, apartando de mi rostro el paraguas, dejé que aquellos grandes copos de nieve impactaran en mi cara. Parecían salir de un infinito blanco.  Miles, cientos de miles, millones de copos de nieve. Sin interrupción, sin pausa, reposando sobre las lápidas en una fría mañana. Allí encontré paz y serenidad. Muchas veces, lo triste es bello y no hay necesidad de huir de ello. Muchas veces, la tristeza, la amargura engendra belleza, inspira.

La isla de los muertos es una conocida serie de cuadros del pintor suizo Arnold Böcklin, quien creó múltiples versiones del mismo cuadro, en el que se representa un remero y una figura blanca sobre una pequeña barca, cruzando una amplia extensión de agua en dirección a una isla rocosa. El objeto que acompaña a las figuras en la barca se identifica generalmente como un ataúd, y la figura blanca con Caronte, el barquero que en la mitología griega conducía a las almas al Hades. Böcklin nunca explicó el significado de su pintura, y de hecho el título de la obra no se debe a él sino al tratante de arte Fritz Gurlitt, quien la bautizó así en 1883.

La obra ha atraído la atención de muy diversas personalidades. Adolf Hitler, en particular, estaba obsesionado con el cuadro, una de cuyas versiones llegó a poseer. Freud, Lenin o Clemenceau, entre otros, tenían una reproducción en su oficina. No sólo ellos se apasionaron con la obra de Böcklin. El compositor ruso Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943) compuso un poema sinfónico en 1908 tras haber visto el cuadro en París en 1907.

En La isla de los muertos, opus 29, compuesta por Rachmaninov, la música comienza suavemente, con un movimiento de vaivén que sugiere el rumor de las olas mientras Caronte rema por el río Estigia. A lo largo de esta obra, Rachmaninov utiliza una figura recurrente en un compás de 5/8 para imitar el movimiento del agua y del remo de Caronte. Al comienzo de la obra, el tema principal se repite en un prolongado crescendo; en la sección central, la orquesta explora distintas variaciones del tema, hasta llegar a un momento de silencio tras el cual, al igual que sucede en varias de sus obras, Rachmaninov introduce el motivo de la música del Dies irae como referencia a la muerte. Al mismo tiempo, el vaivén de la música también sugiere el sonido de una respiración, indicando de esa manera que la vida y la muerte se entrelazan.

He escuchado decenas de veces esta obra y por mucho que la oiga, jamás me deja indiferente. La capacidad de Rachmaninov para recrear un ambiente absolutamente tétrico es espectacular. Entre las notas se respira, se siente de forma inconfundible la muerte, lo oscuro, lo tenebroso … Pero aun así, es bello, tremendamente bello. Sumerjámonos en las aguas del río Estigia y dejémonos acunar por ese vaivén, por esas olas del compás de 5/8.

Una variación musical es una composición caracterizada por contener un tema musical que imita en otros subtemas o variaciones, los cuales guardan el mismo patrón armónico del tema original, y cada parte se asocia una con la otra. Difiere entre ellas los patrones melódicos y el tempo de cada variación.

Las variaciones se pueden componer partiendo de temas de composición propia o a partir de temas de otros compositores. Claro ejemplo de este último caso es la Variación nº18 sobre un tema de Paganini que el compositor ruso Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943) compuso en 1934 basándose en el Capricho Nº 24 de Paganini.

Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No.7 are on the Seattle Symphony’s program this weekend.  A different program was scheduled to be led by Andre Previn; Vaughn Williams Symphony No.5 was on that program.  John Fiore, a local product who is making a conducting career for himself in Europe, is filling in.

Can’t get to New York this weekend?  Well, don’t worry, you can still catch the live HD broadcast of the Met’s production of John Adams’s 2005 opera Doctor Atomic.  Theaters up and down the Sound have the broadcast. People living in Seattle can catch the broadcast at the Pacific Place AMC.

Next week Emanuel Ax and Yefim Bronfman bring Rachmaninov’s two piano version of the Symphonic Dances to Benaroya Hall as well as music by Mozart and Willian Bolcom.

The day after, the Ying Quartet continues the Seattle Symphony’s Beethoven string quartet cycle with a recital of Beethoven’s Op.18, No.3; Op.59, No.3 “Hero”; and Op.127 string quartets.

On the same night as the Ax and Bronfman performance, Seattle Opera’s Young Artists take to Town Hall with an updated performance of Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel.

BOCA RATON — The Third Piano Concerto of Sergei Rachmaninov has been celebrated — and feared by pianists — for its immense difficulties and its taxing length, even while listeners have kept it a beloved part of the canon for almost 100 years.

The Armenian pianist Sergei Babayan showed he was up to the challenge of the Rachmaninov on Saturday night with a fine performance of the work as the Lynn Philharmonia got its 16th season under way at the St. Andrew’s School in Boca Raton.

Appearing with the mostly conservatory student orchestra on the second half of a program led by conservatory dean Jon Robertson, Babayan demonstrated an ability to play the many thousands of notes Rachmaninov wrote and put them into a satisfying emotional context. Babayan gave the piece all the extravagance the score calls for, as well as the tenderness: he was heroic in most of the first movement and tender as he launched the main theme of the second.

The only thing that was missing for me was a certain amount of thematic clarity, especially in the first movement cadenza. One of the problems here is that the climax of this section is on a rather banal motif, and it’s supported by huge chords that climb up from the depths. Babayan pedaled through the supporting chords, which helps obscure the weakness of the writing somewhat, but it also sounds like the composer is trying to hide something.

Preferences vary on things like this, but I would rather hear all these sorts of passages played as clean as a whistle; it provides a much-needed astringency to an all-stops-out piece and helps balance it. That said, Babayan certainly gave an exciting rendition of this work, one that had the audience jumping to its feet with the last martial tattoo. The Lynn orchestra accompanied quite well, marred only by some out-of-tune winds in the opening bars that threw some odd harmonic lights onto the austerity of the chant-like opening melody.

Robertson showed admirable control of his orchestra in the Rachmaninov and throughout the concert. He has a very clear idea what he wants, and his charges give it to him.

This was crucial for the first half of the concert, which was composed of a sort of dog’s breakfast of three different pieces: an opera overture, a musical-tourism showpiece, and the emotional-heart movement of a gigantic post-Romantic symphony. But Robertson’s conceptions were precise enough that the audience was able to enter each very different sound world with ease.

The concert opened with Giuseppe Verdi’s overture to his opera La Forza del Destino, which began with those opening six unison hammerblows in the brass thankfully in tune, and played with crispness and power. The opening theme murmured along with the right amount of mystery, though the second theme was much too slow for my taste, if still effective and well-played. Here again, Robertson and the Philharmonia showed themselves well able to handle the different moods and tempi of this stop-and-start overture and make it work; I also appreciated that he was happy to let all of Verdi’s colors — which were critical to the composer’s conception of how opera was to be written — display themselves in their full splendor, as in the big brass section statement toward the end.

The first half closed with the Capriccio Espagnol of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, whose death 100 years ago is being observed this year in the classical world with increased performances of his music. This is tough music to bring across, too, because of its five-section structure. There was some nice solo violin and horn work in the Capriccio, and there was plenty of vigor in the Philharmonia’s reading.

But it seemed to lose momentum somewhere before the false ending that is followed by the big brass fanfare. There needs to be a sense of surprise and show-off throughout the work, and to me it sounded dutiful and pleasant rather than exotic and alluring.

The most involving performance came between the Verdi and the Rimsky-Korsakov: The celebrated Adagietto movement from the Fifth Symphony of Gustav Mahler. From the almost inaudibly whispered opening bars to the exhausted ending, the Philharmonia’s strings and harp played this famous music with the only kind of naked, rapt emotionalism that can make it so moving (even amid the grinding of the Roberts Hall air-conditioning units in the very quiet moments). Ensemble was admirable throughout, which was demonstrated in particular by the seamlessness of the transition from violins to celli in picking up the chief melody.

It was the kind of reading that made you think: Now what about the rest of that piece? Would it overtax this group too much, or would it be worth trying? That’s not a decision for me, but that the thought could occur says good things about this conservatory band.

(The Lynn Philharmonia will repeat the program at 4 p.m. Sunday in Roberts Hall, St. Andrew’s School, which is off Jog Road south of Yamato Road. Tickets are $30. Call 561-237-9000 or visit www.lynn.edu)

Listening this week to the new discs of the short-lived American pianist William Kapell, taken from broadcasts over the air in 1953 as he toured Australia. He was killed that October when his plane coming back from Down Under slammed into a mountain near San Francisco.

He was just 31 years old, and on the verge of what in all likelihood would have been a major career. Although American composers were fond of him for pursuing fresh repertoire, the selections on these two RCA Red Seal discs (called Kapell reDiscovered) essentially are canonical works; the newest piece on the programs is the Seventh Sonata of Prokofiev, written over the period 1939-42. The composer had died earlier in 1953, but still the piece is the closest thing to a contemporary composition.

What one hears on these records is a pianist with a strong personality, a musician at that phase of his career in which the music becomes an outgrowth of his own personal expression, as if he had composed it himself.

In the Mussorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition, for instance, the first few promenade sections are intensely intimate, while in Bydlo, Kapell plays with brute force, snapping off the melody and its grinding accompaniment, and then does a marvelous fadeout as the ox-cart disappears into the distance, the dynamic level getting softer and softer until it is lost from view.

The Mussorgsky is on the first of this collection’s two discs, included with a gentle, clear-lined Bach A minor Suite (BWV 818) and the Rachmaninov Third Concerto, with the Victorian Symphony Orchestra under Sir Bernard Heinze. It’s a good performance of the Rachmaninov, too, with plenty of fireworks, fast fingers, and lyricism.

These performances were recorded off the air by a department store salesman named Roy Preston, who saved them onto acetate discs, and that creates two problems: One is that a short section of the Rachmaninov third movement was lost as the disc ran out of room and Preston had to turn it over.

The engineers here have patched it with an earlier recording of Kapell playing the same work, and the patch is quite obvious. They did the same thing in two other instances: the first movement of the Bach was not recorded, so a recital version was subbed, and the final bars of the Mussorgsky weren’t broadcast, so another recital version has been stitched in.

In all these cases, the difference in the sources can clearly be heard, and there’s been no attempt to go through and eliminate the large amount of surface noise and dynamic distortion present on the original acetate discs. Listening to it, especially in louder portions of the music, can be irritating, but it’s worth enduring these two difficulties to hear this pianist in his final appearances.

Still, I wouldn’t oppose a remastering — not to eliminate mistakes (there aren’t many), but to clear up the noise, which can be considerable.

The second of the two discs features the Prokofiev sonata, a late sonata by Mozart (in B-flat, K. 570), the Suite Bergamasque of Debussy and three works by Chopin: the Barcarolle, the Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 55, No. 2, and the First Scherzo.

The scherzo sticks out for its blistering speed — if Chopin wants Presto, that’s what I’ll give him, Kapell seems to say. But it’s a little too fast, and it sounds rushed and muddy. The pulse of the piece gets lost in the opening bars, and the closing bars of the first section sound tacked on rather than a product of the same narrative line.

The Prokofiev sonata, on the other hand, is well-suited for Kapell; he knows how much to make of the composer’s mix of tunefulness and grotesquerie, and he makes a good case for the work The first movement is slightly on the galumphy side, but it has a nice impishness that translates well through the old sound technology.

Although the sound isn’t ideal on these Australian recordings, it’s wonderful that they were in good enough shape to offer a window into the last days of a fine pianist who clearly had talent and ambition to burn, and it’s a shame he didn’t get the chance to realize it.

Here’s a video offered up on the Kapell Website of a 10-minute recital by the pianist, apparently for an old Omnibus program hosted by Alistair Cooke. Kapell plays Scarlatti (the E major sonata, L. 23), a favorite of Horowitz, who played it on his Moscow recital in 1986; Kapell makes a lot of the imitation-guitar chords he hears in the piece, while Horowitz’s performance is much more intimate. Both good performances, both with lots of personality.

Also on this video are the Chopin nocturne Kapell played in Australia, and a flashy arrangement of an Argentine folksong.

Cellist, Amit Peled.

Friday night saw the last of this season’s twelve concerts at Lakeside School presented by Seattle Chamber Music Society. The quality, high for many years now, has reached the pinnacles of excellence. This season was nothing short of stellar—one concert after another was breathtaking in, above all, its musicality, and the season sold out bar a very few tickets at one concert.

However, for those who have missed it so far, don’t despair. There are five concerts commencing Wednesday August 6^th, at Overlake School in Redmond: same wonderful musicians, same commitment to the very best music-making, similar intimate hall and pleasant surroundings for picnicking. It’s worth the trip.

The free recitals prior to the concerts have also been remarkable. On Friday night Israeli cellist Amit Peled played Bloch’s Suite No. 1 and Ligeti’s Sonata, both for unaccompanied cello. The first owes a debt to Bach which was particularly obvious in the opening Prelude, yet equally stamped with originality, while the Ligeti—essentially a description of unsuccessful wooing on Ligeti’s part displaying his despondency, optimism and eventual fury—benefitted from Peled’s spoken introduction.

The visiting cellists this season, Ronald Thomas, Robert deMaine, Bion Tsang, and now Peled have without exception played not just with the virtually perfect technique we have come to expect, but with close attention to the moods of the music, so that it has been explosive or singing, rich and deep or tender and light, serene or edgy, and always compelling.

The main concert Friday began with an elegant confection by Schubert, his Trio for Strings in B-Flat. The violinist, for this performance Ida Levin, gets the lion’s share of the work, with four movements which could easily be described as songs for the violin with Schubert’s inimitable ear for melody. Violist and cellist, Richard O’Neill and Peled, have much less to do, though the viola has the lead in an almost eerie melodic section in the third movement trio. The piece is light, bright and airy and that’s how they played it.

Violinist Jun Iwasaki and pianist Anton Nel, the one of Japanese background, the other from South Africa, played Bartok’s Rhapsody No. 1 as though Hungarian through to their bones. Full of life and vigor, wild and energetic, it made the feet itch to get up and join in.

Finally, we heard Rachmaninov’s Trio for Piano and Strings in D Minor, “Elegiaque,” with violinist Scott Yoo, cellist Tsang and pianist William Wolfram. This was a performance so absorbing, so complete, that at the end, when the performers stood up to bow, they appeared to be not quite with us, still somewhere far away.

The piano part is immense. Wolfram encompassed its enormous range from thunderous rolling harmonies to delicate nuance with ease, but never did he overwhelm the violin or cello. In turn, Yoo and Tsang played without forcing, but drew astonishing strength and warmth from their instruments so that they matched the piano. Yoo’s violin had almost the richness of a viola. From the first measures, the music-making was sheer joy, the ensemble work as one, the balance never out of sync, the quality and depth of sound gorgeous.

I’m not usually a great fan of Rachmaninov, but this performance was one of those memorable ones I won’t forget.

Onwards to Redmond! See you there.

Photo courtesy of Seattle Chamber Music Society

Four hundred and twenty five people filled the small St. Nicholas Recital Hall on the Ivy-like Lakeside School campus on Wednesday night. It was day two of the Seattle Chamber Music Festival. For six weeks each summer, some of the most distinguished musicians make the trip to Seattle and perform a wide swath of the standard and not-so-standard chamber music repertoire.

The small space and sellout crowd pushed my seat for the concert all the way to the front row. Intimate is an understatement. I was close enough to touch the stage and within reach of the musicians on the right side of the stage. Such close proximity makes it easy to focus on the wrong things. Socks, a foot wiggling off a piano pedal, beads of sweat and shimmering attire.

But, once the first ad hoc ensemble launched into the springy melodies of Mendelssohn’s Piano Quartet in F Minor these distractions became an afterthought.

Before I even got to the Mendelssohn, and socks, there was a free recital. It’s notable that a festival as popular as the Seattle Chamber Music Festival gives curious listeners thirty or forty minutes of free music. The crowd was full, but not at capacity, for pianist Jeremy Denk’s performance of Charles Ives’ First Piano Sonata. Denk convinced me of the sonata’s merit. For five movements and just about thirty minutes, the sonata is far from cohesive. Each movement, which according to Ives is to resemble rural Connecticut life, is actually more urban in character with the free, improvisational feel of the work and the ample use of rag time and “inn” imagery.

The music was vintage Ives. Complicated, textured and demanding for listeners. But Denk somehow made music out of the quagmire of sound and distorted hymn material. His charisma set the stage but his playing ruled the evening.

The rest of the evening wasn’t as unruly.

The main concert was a proper mix of romantic music that began with a performance of Mendelssohn’s Piano Quartet in F Minor and ended with Gabriel Faure’s Piano Quartet in G Minor. In the middle long-time chamber festival participant Ronald Thomas and relative newcomer Andrew Armstrong performed Rachmaninov’s Cello Sonata in G Minor.

The evening belonged to James Ehnes and Jeremy Denk, though. Denk’s work at the keyboard in the Faure and Ehnes commanding lead in the Mendelssohn Quartet showed why these two artists are quickly moving to the forefront of classical performers. They are peerless musicians with an ability to take control without taking over.

But, even Ehnes, Denk and their fellow musicians couldn’t freshen music that, by today’s standards, sounds old fashioned. Over two hours of earnest Romantic music was too much of the same for my ears. Don’t get me wrong, the music on Wednesday’s program is objectively good. But, those searching for something new would have been sorely disappointed, unless listeners were coming to the pieces for the first time.

By the end of the evening, I revisited the Ives Piano Sonata in my mind. Ives is played so little, I doubt I will ever hear this piece performed live again. Yet, it is music that should define summer music festivals. The piece is filled with so many ideas, curiosities and tricks that it will stick in your mind long after being heard. Ives’ compositions are brash and the composer breaks rules for the fun of it.

A little bit of adventure never hurt anyone and with playing as good as Denk’s and, later on, Ehnes, Armstrong and Thomas, perhaps the paying public might actually enjoy more pieces like Ives First Piano Sonata.

Perhaps it is counter-intuitive to add music to a poem by John Giorno since his delivery is so musical to begin with, but here is Giorno reading “Eating With Sky” with the musical accompaniment of Sergei Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2.  I remember my brother, sister, and I buying this record for my mother for Mother’s Day in the early eighties. This was quite an improvement over the Jean Nate perfume sets she was used to receiving. 

Eating The Sky edit

Giorno is well-known as the creator of the record label Giorno Poetry Systems, as well as Dial-A-Poem, in which listeners called in to one of 15 telephone lines to hear fresh poems from the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Joe Brainard, and Bernadette Mayer.  

The artist and writer Joe Brainard’s book, I Remember, is a favorite of mine. Brainard seemed unafraid of being a sentimentalist, which to me is refreshing in an environment where sarcasm and cynicism are constantly masking our true emotions. I’m not trying to make any big statements there. Brainard died of AIDS-related illness in 1994. Below is a picture of him in his studio,  and one of his biggest artistic subjects, comic heroine Nancy.

Lastly, a Dial-A-Poem excerpt from I Remember :

I Remember

From: theoshow2

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in A minor for piano & orchestra, Op. 43
Philadelphia Orchestra, Conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Sergei Rachmaninov, piano