Concord Pops Concert Worthy of the Genre

Eric Culver — Tue, 18 May 2010 17:46:35 +0000

The hall at 51 Walden in Concord was crowded with tables on Sunday afternoon, May 16, for the last of the Concord Orchestra Pops concerts. This was not easy-listening pablum, but real music on a diverse menu, showing the Concord Orchestra in great shape after a busy season. Pittman’s conducting brings out exuberant, crisp, full range of dynamics and phrasing from his orchestra.

There was a great ‘pop’ right from the start in a classic opener, Russlan and Ludmilla Overture of Glinka, setting the virtuosic tone for the concert. There was also admirable solo work in the Overture, Scherzo and Wedding March from Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, in Johann Strauss Jr’s Donner und Blitz Polka and Frühlingsstimmen, and Siri Smedvig’s introduction to Jacob Gade’s Jalousie, the world’s best Danish tango.

We also heard the world premiere of a classy new brass and percussion piece, Fanfare for Dick, by Bernard Hoffer, written in honor of Richard Pittman’s 40th anniversary with the Concord Symphony Orchestra, parent of the Concord Pops.

Arthur Foote was a prominent and much-admired member of “The Boston Six” at the turn of the last century. (His piece, In the Mountains, was performed by the Boston Symphony under Wilhelm Gericke at the Paris Exposition in 1889.) Foote’s 1918 A Night Piece, a great example of American music of the period, with complex counterpoint, ‘exotic’ harmonies, and a distinctive voice, was given a clear and lyrical performance by principal flutist Susan Jackson and the orchestra strings. The light touches of the cymbals were effectively discreet.

Soprano Karyl Ryczek sang Zerlna’s “Batti, batti” from Mozart’s Don Giovanni beautifully and with perfect diction, as well as leading the Arlen, Rodgers and Duke sing-along; the arrangements were quite lush and elegantly underplayed. The audience singers faded quickly from her rendition of April in Paris, however, and let her beautiful tone carry the day.

The concert closed with “Stars and Stripes Forever,” complete with perfectly unfurling red, white and blue.

Conductor, pianist and composer Eric Culver is Music Director of the Holy Cross Chamber Orchestra and Lecturer in Music at the College, and also composer-in-residence at Redfeather Theater (Worcester Shakespeare Festival).

Boston Music Viva: Remarkable Variety, Abundant Cleverness

Eric Culver — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:44:31 +0000

The format has long become a genre in itself, an economical standard of sonorities and players almost a century old (in 2012!) and the basis of countless groups and commissions. Its flexibility and variety, however, was already a hallmark of ‘daily music’ in public places, with lobby, salon and theater orchestras. Schoenberg’s ironic Brettllieder were scored for soprano, piccolo, trumpet, snare drum, and piano in 1901, a sound more than familiar to cabaret patrons, and the second version of Rhapsody in Blue was scored for pit band by Ferde Grofe in 1925 with cues in each part, so that a recognizable performance was achievable even without a solo piano. For Boston Musica Viva, entering its fifth decade, this format has never been a limitation, and certainly not a compromise. On Friday, November 20, at the Tsai Performance Center, there was a remarkable variety, with many reference points and abundant cleverness.

Joseph Schwantner’s Elixir, from 1974, is a lovely piece with an extended color palette, the musicians doubling outside their fach with glass harmonica effects, bowed crotales and whistling, and abundant use of sympathetic vibrations within the piano; the focus of the piece is the flute, played beautifully by Ann Bobo.

Mikronomicon, a new David Rakowski work written for Geoffrey Burleson on commission from BMV, takes a left turn into jazzy funky noir. The composer and the pianist have history and a complicated Weltanschauung, and the piece chews up the musical landscape with great humor. The reedy melodeon tones taste a little Argentinian, and the register games are a lot of fun. The second movement of this ‘microconcerto’ was inspired by a dream, a haunting falling major 2nd harmonized and re-harmonized 99 times; I went home and put on Mahler 9. And the Scherzo, ‘dirty and intense,’ a funk delirium; both Rakowski and Burleson bring to bear abundant vocabulary from Piazzola and Prokofiev that flies by with great effect.

Chris Arrell’s Narcissus/echo from 2006 received its first Boston performance. For quartet (violin, cello, clarinet and percussion) it reveals a long melody passed and fragmented between the instruments in insistent, regular patterns and counter rhythms, often with ghostly melodic wisps left hanging in the air. A sonic prism, the piece steadily drains itself of color.

For the Ives songs, Richard Pittman devised quite clever and evocative instrumentation much in the tradition of the pit band: the Circus Band entered raucously from the lobby, but Down East wore the delicate cotton dress of a Stephen Foster heroine. Pamela Dellal sang beautifully and evocatively. In Son of a Gambolier and Old Home Day the band’s kazoos and chorus were lively but perhaps too polite: Ives himself singing and crashing through “They Are There” in 1943 set a high standard for rowdiness.

At the end, “Blues” from Bernard Hoffer’s A Boston Cinderella, written as well for BMV, rounded out the evening with familiar music: Richard Pittman is very loyal to his composers, a trait that becomes more crucial as the commissions and performance opportunities accumulate. The drawback of a tradition of premieres is the superficial impression a first performance imposes, a form of speed-dating; even if a piece is performed twice on a concert, one must develop as a listener the questions that will reveal some subcutaneous substance. We need to get comfortable with this repertory as it matures, and as the performers accommodate it, and this program was a great opportunity to do just that.

Conductor, pianist, and composer Eric Culver is music director of the Holy Cross Chamber Orchestra and composer-in-residence of Redfeather Theater, in Worcester.

The Boston Musical Intelligencer » Eric Culver

Concord Pops Concert Worthy of the Genre

Conductor, pianist and composer Eric Culver is Music Director of the Holy Cross Chamber Orchestra and Lecturer in Music at the College, and also composer-in-residence at Redfeather Theater (Worcester Shakespeare Festival).

Boston Music Viva: Remarkable Variety, Abundant Cleverness

Conductor, pianist, and composer Eric Culver is music director of the Holy Cross Chamber Orchestra and composer-in-residence of Redfeather Theater, in Worcester.