A rundown of recent performances: - Beethovens 9th at Strathmore on 1/3, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Baltimore Choral Arts Society with guest vocalists conducted by Nicholas McGegan Ever since McGegans stellar Messiah last Xmas at the Kennedy Center Id been looking forward to his next outing in DC Metro, and again he did not disappoint. Hell, he even got me perusing my Barenreiter study score with interest during the 9ths odious 4th movement (Im loath to even call it by its insufferable nickname) without having the utmost urge to storm out of the desecrated hall yet stopping short purely out of protocol. Hes scheduled to return with the same forces in an all-Bach program next month. My calendar has been marked accordingly. One minor grievance: the BSO brass puzzling tendency to let slip a harsh tone here and there. For such a world-class orchestra this defect is surely not irremediable. Maybe next time. - The Ying Quartet at Wolf Trap (The Barns) on 1/9 Was gonna go see the Folger Consort on this Friday (and check out cellist Zuill Bailey the next day), but noticed that the acclaimed Ying siblings plus 2nd violinist Ayano Ninomiya were presenting Weberns sublime Five Movements for string quartet, and since you dont get to hear the inscrutable Austrian very often I had a last-minute change of heart. And the right change it was. As is the custom at The Barns there was an extended Q&A after the intermission, but the more interesting interlude came beforehand (the intermission followed the Webern) when violist Philip offered a self-deprecatingly mundane but cogent analogy between modern lifes need to declutter and Weberns (in)famous economy of expression that still feels more relevant than any dogmatic serialism which he is known for. And thankfully scholarship was matched by musicianship in these brief (all of 11 minutes--in fact Philip cut short his intro joking that he didnt want to speak longer than the next selections duration) yet exceptionally eloquent pieces. The Webern was bookended by Schumanns also rarely heard 2nd of his three Op. 41 string quartets (Bob wrote all of his three quartets in a matter of weeks in 1842, his extremely productive chamber music year) and Brahms more famous Quartet in C minor, Op. 51, No. 1, both of which the foursome played with similar perfection. The post-performance ritual this time was less an autograph session than a soiree, with the members of the quartet roaming about and chatting with anyone who cared to approach them, which made requesting all their penmanship alone a challenge. Of course I failed to pay Philip a deserved compliment for his Webern intro. - The Road to Canterbury: Music of Medieval England at Washington National Cathedral on 1/10, Folger Consort with Lionheart and other guest artists This time the Folger Shakespeare Librarys resident ensemble switched their venue to the National Cathedral, one of DCs most overlooked attractions along with the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (even I never bothered to set foot in the latter until my bro & sis-in-law came to visit a couple of Thanksgivings ago). Just for that experience this concert was worth the $30 minimum admission, but then I managed to shave half of it down to $15 and got myself an even better deal. (The same cant be said of the $10 parking ripoff.) On to the main menu. So another early-music performance by the band, except that this one featured more obscure music than even its presumably informed audience is accustomed to. Most of the pieces were anonymous, and you know youre dealing with esoteric stuff when John Dunstable is the biggest name around. Unsurprisingly this made for a less varied program than the previous two of this season, as the relentless monophony grated after a short while. Also I cant say that the program succeeded in making its already tenuous link to Chaucer any more robust, since it featured only one piece (Gabriel fram heven-king) that is mentioned in The Canterbury Tales and surely none of the music emanated from the poets fecund imaginative world where the boundary between high- and lowbrow is broken with impunity without hesitation. The performance itself was typically first-rate with a fine contribution by the visiting vocal ensemble Lionheart. - The Rite of Spring at Strathmore on 1/11, Baltimore Symphony with conducted by Marin Alsop Nearly every program note about Stravinskys seminal masterpiece mentions its eventful premiere which saw perhaps the most infamous riot of the 20th century (though the main culprit was probably Nijinskys unseemly choreography over anything else). Indeed, in a just world The Rite of Spring should elicit similarly violent reaction from the audience in every one of its live performances, as the elemental force of this remarkable score can startle, baffle and thrill even today, more than a century later. Now that was the second half of this program. The first half was filled out by Osvaldo Golijovs Rose of the Winds, a kaleidoscope of sounds that threatened to upstage its illustrious predecessor in sheer novelty. Its instrumentation alone is worth noting: in addition to the standard classical orchestra, it calls for Galician bagpipes, kamancheh (a bowed string instrument originating from Iran), klezmer clarinet and the electronically powered hyper-accordion, respectively played by Cristina Pato, Kayhan Kalhor, David Krakauer and Michael Ward-Bergeman. No, this isnt the 21 centurys Rite of Spring: strip away the ethnomusicological veneer and youll find a relatively traditional tonality, and its vocals can come dangerously close to New Age pablum. But I was never bored and found myself constantly leaning forward to soak in the pageantry of colors. Golijov is definitely a name worth exploring further. Alsop and her Baltimore band were predictably more than satisfactory, allowing the Stravinskys primal violence to shake the auditorium as it should, and the guest quartet treated the Golijov with infectious enthusiasm, which was extended to their pre-intermission encore performance of the Galician Overture by The Chieftains Paddy Moloney (written for their 1996 album Santiago, one of my all-time favorites; Cristina Pato, the bagpiper, is not incidentally from Galicia).
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 05:59:46 +0000
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