Charles Ives’s Third Symphony (“The Camp Meeting”), composed in 1904, revised in 1911 (but not performed until 1946), seems like a natural for this orchestra, in this town so full of American history, but it is not without its difficulties. Unlike his “Concord Sonata” for piano, with movements devoted to Emerson, Hawthorne, the Alcotts, and Thoreau, the Symphony no. 3 bears no specific allusions to Concord. It builds its movements (“Old Folks Gatherin’,” “Children’s Day,” and “Communion”) from brief snatches of evangelical hymn tunes, which become recognizable near the end, where they may be conflicting with snatches of other tunes as countermelodies. After a moment of uncertain opening, the players settled in for an affectionate though sometimes uncertain expression of these tunes—“Just as I Am” more than once. The dissonances were confidently presented, and balanced. The final cadence of the second movement (“Children’s Day”) was delicate and lovely.

The Mozart piano concerto was no doubt intended as a familiar contrast in another different way—the music‘s stylistic conventions were familiar, whereas in the Ives the compositional structure of the familiar tunes was unfamiliar. A welcoming ripple ran throughout the audience, proving that the contrast was well-timed. Unfortunately tuning was a bit of a problem: during the break one of the contrabass players unexpectedly stepped down with his instrument to the piano and, bow in hand, awkwardly punched an “A,” and then resumed his playing position. That was just not enough for the remaining players, particularly the strings, to tune to; thus the piano’s entrance in measure thirteen was a bit jarring. The previous twelve measures had been a bit rocky because the strings were not playing together. There were other disturbing moments for other reasons; e.g., the second violins were not even bowing together in some phrases. Perhaps this was due to lack of rehearsal time. David Deveau was playing from a piano score, and missed a few notes, but might be forgiven because of the way he caressed Mozart’s singing phrases and his sense of gentle give and take with the orchestra members. Indeed there were many such moments of easy dialogue, shaping and communicating similar phrases with each other.

The second half of the program consisted entirely of Stravinsky’s Petrushka (1911, rev. 1946), its thirteen movements performed without pause—well over thirty minutes in Pittman’s easy, steady tempi. In any case, it seemed long, and the audience grew a bit restless. Petrushka of course is a puppet character, in the tradition of the English Punch and the French Pierrot, who suddenly comes to life. The music is an amalgam of Russian folk and liturgical music, generated with Stravinsky’s incredible ear for harmonic color and rhythm. A musical “libretto” for the scenes from the entire ballet was outlined in the program notes, intended to help the audience members keep their place. I heard a sparkling, instrumentally differentiated performance. I felt as though I had heard the piece for the first time, although without following the score, it is difficult to say why. I thought at first it was due to the smaller size of the orchestra than that of performances usually heard. To my surprise, the Concord Orchestra has the same number of winds, brasses, and percussion as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, but nineteen fewer strings (six fewer first violins). Were we really hearing the 1911 score, first performed in Paris under the direction of Pierre Monteux? Or the version he re-orchestrated for smaller orchestra in 1946? As Stravinsky’s biographer, Eric Walter White wrote (1969), “The new Petrushka is the music of the composer of 1910. . . ; the composer of 28 did not orchestrate like the man of 64, nor could the orchestrator of 64 have composed like the man of 28.” We’ll never know.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

The libretto tells a story set in a mythical kingdom “not quite so far away,” or, as the court Jester puts it, “long away and far ago.” The issue is conformity, political and otherwise. The five main characters comprise the Jester (Charles Blandy) who is both in, and commenting on the drama, King Pomposo III (David Kravitz), Queen Zealosa (D’Anna Fortunato), a Prince/boy (Gregory Zavracky), and The Girl (Natalie Polito). All but Blandy are members of Intermezzo. Two rocket scientists (Jonathan Price and Taylor Homer) appear and offer to do away with whatever foes there may be with their (imaginary) rockets. It turns out that not only are there no rockets, but also no foes, rather only the foolishness of the King and the Queen. The Jester tries to orchestrate a happy ending (they are expected, after all, in fairy tales), but the Prince, roused from his focus on cooing with The Girl, finally realizes that the solution is “to simply be,” in harmony. There are various other supporting characters, not all of whom sing, and a chorus of nine assuming the roles of citizens. The well-balanced chamber orchestra of fourteen, including electric piano, sported only one member of Juventas, cellist Rachel Arnold; none had performed with Intermezzo.

Yannatos, who directed the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra for over 40 years, had originally written this opera for a performance at the Loeb Theatre in 1972. Unhappy with the heavy-handed staging, Yannatos literally shelved it, but in 2008 completely rewrote it. Kravitz brought it to the attention of Intermezzo, and hence this performance. The set was minimal: black curtains over which seven banners with slogans from earlier times hung down: “Ask not what you can do for your country . . . ,” “Yes we can,” “A kinder, gentler nation,” &c.; at the conclusion, “Make Love, Not War” flopped down unexpectedly. A puppet theater was rolled on and off stage at various times and manipulated a bit to suggest scene changes. The director decided to open the opera with the children settling down for a bedtime story in their pajamas. They then become characters (the citizens) in the opera (still in their pajamas) with their storybooks (i.e., the chorus scores) in hand, because, as Cairns explained, there was no money either for their costumes or to pay them to memorize their parts. The orchestra members also wore pajama bottoms and socks without shoes, suggesting that they, too, were citizens of the fairy land, and further integrating the production. In any case they seemed to enjoy the fun. Only the principal characters wore costumes suggestive of far ago (although The Girl wore modern high heels with her peasant dress). D’Anna Fortunato’s wig was simply amazing (thanks to wig master Don Swenson). The three Courtiers (Thomas Oesterling, Paul Soper, and John Whittlesey) wore suits and large sunglasses..

Does all this sound a little gemischt? You betcha, in the most delightful, purposeful way. If the earlier production was “heavy-handed,” this one was surely “light-handed” in keeping with the alternate humor and seriousness, and certainly the timelessness of the messages offered.

Director Cairns mentioned that the music was difficult, but there was no sign of that from the performers. Baritone Kravitz (King) and mezzo-soprano Fortunato (Queen) sang and acted their roles, as is their custom, perfectly into their characters, with the confidence their long experience yields. Charles Blandy (Jester) sang from score, presumably to save costs as he is not an Intermezzo member, but he too managed the vagaries of his character with strong presence and a fine tenor voice. Tenor Gregory Zavracky (Prince/Boy) and soprano Natalie Polito (The Girl) have good voices, although Polito’s high pitches are so fat as to be almost non comprehensible at times; both lack the confidence and maturity of Kravitz and Fortunato, but they will get there.

Conductor Edward Jones may be known to readers as the Harvard University organist and choirmaster, and a fine one at that, but he also aspires to conduct opera, which he pursues at Harvard and elsewhere. Unfortunately, the Agassiz Theatre has no pit, although there is a slightly raised stage. My seat was directly behind Jones on the same level. His directions to the instrumentalists and to the singers were crisp and clearly differentiated.

Yannatos is a fine craftsman: the music was perfect for this multilayered invention, yet in a classical style with respect to recitatives and arias. In particular I enjoyed the humorous use of the woodblock or snare drum to punctuate recitatives.

The audience for Sunday’s performance was skimpy, although there seemed to be more present during the second act — too much going on in Boston that particular day. But the minute the enthusiastic applause died, I heard voices behind me saying, “Great! Great! Well done!” I agree wholeheartedly. The choices Intermezzo made, given the funds, were not only sensible, but contributed to the magic of Yannatos’s vision; kudos to Intermezzo for making this effort and seeing it through. Nevertheless, I would still like to see this opera picked up by a company that could afford it.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

]]> http://classical-scene.com/2011/10/04/yannatos/feed/ 0 http://classical-scene.com/2011/09/20/stunning-sonorities/ http://classical-scene.com/2011/09/20/stunning-sonorities/#comments Wed, 21 Sep 2011 03:17:58 +0000 Mary Wallace Davidson http://classical-scene.com/?p=8967 Cantabile, Putnam and Meneses graced each others’ performances with fluent give-and-take. Putnam’s rich, though here subdued, violin tone is breathtaking. Meneses's stunning sonorities in Brouwer’s Paisaje cubano con campanas held this listener spellbound, and the guitarists traversed idiomatically varied styles in Berio’s Duetti per due violini. Putnam and Meneses in the simple folk concept of Robert Beaser's Mountain Songs was a treat.            [Click title for full review.]]]> The Concord Chamber Music Society presented an unusual program to a full and appreciative house at the Concord Academy Performing Arts Center on Sunday afternoon, September 18. This was music for one or two guitars or violin and guitar performed by Eliot Fisk and Zaira Meneses, guitars, and Wendy Putnam, violin and founder director of the Society. Preceding the concert, Steven Ledbetter, who also wrote the program notes, gave a wide-ranging pre-concert lecture providing some context to the works.

The concert opened with two pieces for violin and guitar by Nicolò Paganini (1782-1840).  Cantabile (originally entitled Cantabile e Valtz, 1823), was written during a slack period of recovery from venereal disease, when Paganini visited Domenico Pino, a retired general and amateur musician with whom he played duets for violin and guitar at the General’s villa on Lake Como. On these occasions Paganini reportedly had the sense to tone down his virtuoso violin technique, and the result is a strikingly beautiful, indeed “singing” piece, performed with the art of simplicity by Putnam and Meneses. Putnam’s rich, though here subdued, violin tone is breathtaking. To accommodate additions to the program, the two also performed just the last movement (Andantino variato) from Paganini’s Grand Sonata in A major. Here the opening melody is in the guitar, where, thanks to an arrangement by Fisk not noted in the program, the melody is in the violin during each repeat, an alternation that continued throughout this theme-and-variations movement. Putnam and Meneses graced each others’ performances of the same music with fluent give and take.

Meneses then returned to the stage for the first of two insertions in the program, Leo Brouwer’s stunning Paisaje cubano con campanas (Cuban landscapes with carillons), composed in 1986, and often recorded. Brouwer, a brilliant Cuban composer, guitarist, and conductor born in 1939, is said to have gone through many stylistic periods, the 1980s marked by “a ‘new simplicity’” and lyricism. By now one expects to hear a work by this composer in every concert of guitar music. In this case unusual sonorities are achieved by both hands lovingly plucking, or even striking the strings at the frets, holding at least this audience member spellbound.

Luciano Berio’s thirty-four Duetti per due violini, each named for a colleague or family member, were composed between 1979 and 1983, during a time when Berio was focused chiefly on large-scale works for opera or orchestra. These duets, however, were written as teaching pieces, mostly for beginners, to be played with their teachers. The seven selections here transcribed for two guitars (Fisk and Meneses) are from a work-in-progress by Fisk, although he is not the first to make these transcriptions. They are diverse in style; for example, “Bela” presumably refers to Béla Bartók, and the music is reminiscent of the Hungarian’s harmonies, whereas generally the music is quite tonal; “Igor,” presumably Stravinsky, generated a lullaby; “Alfredo” seems to be part bumblebee and part song. In any case, they are charming in the hands of Fisk and Meneses, who traverse the styles idiomatically.

At this point Fisk inserted his transcription of three Sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti: K. 431 and 432 in G major (both marked Allegro), and K. 414 in G major (Presto). Harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick, who catalogued and made an edition of all Scarlatti’s Sonatas, was Fisk’s mentor at Yale and provided his insights about the interpretation of these works to his eager student. Thus the transcriptions have a special sense of authority, clarity, and just plain fun — also characteristic of Kirkpatrick on a good day.

Fisk ended the first half of the concert with another work with close connections to a previous teacher: J.S. Bach’s well-known Ciacona in D minor, arranged from his Partita no. 2, BWV 1004 for violin, which was often performed and recorded by Andrès Segovia. Fisk was the famous guitarist’s last “direct” pupil. In this case, the arrangement was by Fisk. He performed it rather fast in the beginning, in almost square tempo, but later eased into a more flowing rubato characteristic of the original.

After intermission we heard four Mountain Songs, for violin and guitar (Ms. Putnam and Ms. Meneses) by Boston’s own Robert Beaser, a classmate of Fisk’s at Yale. These pieces are part of a set of eight written for flute and guitar in 1978; thus no arrangement was noted or necessary. “Barbara Allen” was clearly recognizable in its traditional form, with gentle countermelodies floating throughout. “House Carpenter” was played almost in a country style, while “Fair and Tender Ladies” yielded a lyrical fantasy on the melody. “Cindy” was a frolic. What a treat to hear these two instruments alone together in the simplicity of the folk concept!

By contrast, Fisk and Meneses next played Fisk transcriptions of three waltzes for piano by Frédéric Chopin: in A Minor, op. 34, no. 2; in B minor, op. posth. 69, no. 2; and E-flat major, op. 18. The sound was definitely Spanish, and what a transformation! The many difficulties were accomplished with seemingly easy aplomb by these two exceptional guitarists. Their styles are actually very different, as are their instruments. Fortunately no attempt is made to reconcile them, though they are compatible; thus the sensitive artistry of each shines through the performance.

Continuing in Fisk’s transcriptions of works for other instruments, we heard first Claude Debussy’s familiar piano piece, Clair de lune (Moonlight), in the players’ hands a gleaming jewel in which they often doubled each other, further brightening the sound while reducing the contrapuntal complexity. Finally, and by contrast again, we heard the Dance espagnole (Spanish dance) from the second act of Manuel de Falla’s opera, La vida breve (The brief life). Other transcriptions exist, notably by guitarist Emilio Pujol, but surely none as exuberant, a perfect ending for a fascinating concert.

For an encore we were treated to the Recuerdos (Memories) de la Alhambra (1899), also known as a tremolo study, by Francisco Tárrega for guitar alone. Fisk’s transcription for two guitars may have eased the fiendish difficulties, but in any case, it is a real showpiece and as performed as such.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

This concert of French Baroque Theater Music, Tailored for the Salon, was presented by the relatively new ensemble, Old City Music, comprising Geoffrey Burgess & Owen Watkins, Baroque oboes & recorders; Heidi Powell & Richard Hsu (who happen to be man and wife), violins; Leon Schelhase, harpsichord; and Laura Jeppesen, viola da gamba. Burgess and Shelhase founded the group in East Philadelphia (the “Old City”) in 2009.

Nicholson mentioned in his opening remarks that the ensemble had just spent almost three days of intense rehearsal of this difficult but rewarding music, and it paid off. The point was to present the artists’ idea of an intimate salon concert, “conducted in an overtly theatrical fashion,” often with music from the latest theatrical productions, but also comprising “music imitating theatrical gestures.” That is to say, there was a great deal of the performers’ ingenious selection and arrangement responsible for the presentation, and it was all salutary.

For example, François Couperin’s L’Espagnole, the Second ordre des nations (1726), comprising both a Sonate and a Suite, were placed at the beginning and the end, respectively, of the first half before intermission and were performed by the entire ensemble. The order of movements of the suite was altered, resulting in alternation of trio textures (violins viz. oboes plus continuo), beginning and ending with the whole group.

Sandwiched between was, first, Jean Henri d’Anglebert’s “Prélude & Allemande,” from his Pièces de clavecin (1689), stylishly performed by Schelhase on Nicholson’s harpsichord, built by William Dowd in 1978 after an early 17th-century instrument from the Ruckers’ shop and tuned to a mellow A=392. Schelhase’s ornaments were amazingly rich and smooth; nevertheless the Allemande almost lost its sense of the dance. Next came selections from Livres III-V (1701-25) of Marin Marais’ Pièces de violes, performed with grace and ensemble intimacy by Jeppesen and Schelhase. This was a suite completely made up by the performers to provide “thematic continuity” for the last movement, “L’operation de la taille.” Marais wrote this as an almost literal description of a lithotomy (cutting of a stone from the urinary tract), which he himself underwent.

The program notes included a facsimile of the original engraved score (1725), with inscribed comments about the operation along the way, duly translated into English and read by Jeppesen as she played. She also preceded the performance by reading descriptions of two similar contemporaneous operations — lots of blood and gore. Jeppesen has a very special way of connecting musical phrases that has you sitting on the edge of your seat, waiting for more. Schelhase was an excellent partner, responding in kind to Jeppesen’s playfulness in the imitative sections. The intention behind the performance was, however, quite serious — an informative lesson in both musical and medical history.

The second half also presented fascinating anomalies. It began with the juiciest selections from the eighth of Couperin’s Les Goûts-réunis ou Nouveaux concerts (1724), specified as “dans le goût théâtrale” (in theatrical style). Although instruments are not specified, there are lines for only one or two voices and continuo. Old City performed these movements as an ensemble but featured some sections with the original slimmer instrumentation, finally giving the violinists a chance to shine without the winds. Although, according to a prefatory page to the first edition, Couperin intended the entire Goûts-réunis to be a mixture of the French and Italian styles (as implied in the title), this particular Concert was specifically in the French style, as a tribute to Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687).

For sonic contrast, this was followed by Jacques-Martin Hotteterre’s Première suite de pièces à deux dessus (1712), performed with jocularity on alto recorders by Burgess and Watkins, two men who grew up in Sydney, Australia, and have been playing together since their youth. Rarely have I heard such joyful intimacy and tunefulness in ensemble playing, especially of two completely exposed instruments. The two players, by the way, have very different embouchures.

Les caractères de la danse (1715), by Lully’s student, Jean-Féry Rebel, was one of the composer’s most successful suites of dance music, performed by the most famous women dancers of the time. From a later parody, Old City concluded that each of its fourteen movements, except the two sonatas, was personified in amorous escapades. The work was performed without pause, requiring the performers to fall into each character instantly and then move on. This they did with great energy and glee.

The concert’s lovely dénouement arrived in the form of the Passacaille d’Armide (1686), a slow, stately dance-lament originally written by Lully for the orchestra of the Paris Opera, but also extant in an arrangement for harpsichord by d’Anglebert published in his Pièces de clavecin (1689). The latter was here performed first with appropriate stylish feeling and ornamentation by Schelhase, immediately followed by Old City’s version of the original, in a careful attempt at least to provide context for the d’Anglebert, and “to demonstrate the richness of Lully’s scoring.” This they did, with great aplomb, sending the smallish audience of old-faithfuls home with smiles of satisfaction.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

Fanfare to Stop the Creeping Meatball! (Hilary Scott photo)

This year’s Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, presented from Wednesday, August 3 through Sunday, August 7, was directed by Charles Wuorinen, who in an earlier era was often considered an academic, serial composer.  He is no stranger to the TFCM, having first served on its faculty in 1970, and many of the composers whose music was performed were either his colleagues or former students.

Fred Ho’s Fanfare to Stop the Creeping Meatball, a world première commissioned by the TFCM, was programmed to open all of the concerts except Sunday’s “Prelude” — although it was finally excluded from the Saturday afternoon one. On Thursday night it was performed from the center of the front balcony by Alex Fioto and Najib Wong, trumpets, and Douglas Rosenthal and Paul Jenkins, trombones. Is brief, jazzy, close harmonies and dense textures — short, humorous sentences strung together — set a jolly mood.

The rest of the first half featured members of the Ensemble Signal, conducted by Brad Lubman, whose expressive but subdued use of his entire body (rather than a baton) is a model of its method. Tobias Picker’s Sextet No. 2, “Halle’s Ravine” (1977), was performed by Jackie LeClair, oboe; Bill Kalinkos, clarinet; Christopher Otto, violin; Lauren Radnofsky, cello; Bill Solomon, vibraphone and marimba; and Oliver Hagen, piano. The three movements were all studies in instrumental color in various combinations, marked by dynamic contrasts. Jason Eckardt’s Rendition (2006), for bass clarinet and piano, played respectively by Kalinkos and Hagen, opens with a low growl from both instruments, from which the bass clarinet eventually emerges with notes spreading higher, some bending upwards. There then are a series of crashing chords in the piano, an amazing feat of power and endurance on the part of Hagen, followed by slow, contrasting single notes to close.

Brian Ferneyhough’s Terrain (2005), like much of his music, ferociously difficult, was written for solo violin and chamber ensemble. Performers in this concert were Otto, violin; Kelli Kathman, flute/piccolo;  LeClair, oboe/English horn; Kalinkos, clarinet/bass clarinet; Brad Balliett, bassoon; Nathan Koci, horn; Mike Gurfield, trumpet; Steven Parker, trombone; and Greg Chudzik, double bass. The violin opens with fragmentary phrases, then is joined by low instruments (bass clarinet, double bass, bassoon), finally expanding to include all, slowly building to a long climax, from which there is a short dénouement, and a brief end vanishing into the air.

 A tribute to the late Milton Babbitt was a performance, after intermission, of his More Melismata (2006), by the extraordinary cellist, Fred Sherry, who exhibited incredible control of Babbitt’s pitches as they gleefully hop around with great complexity, ending in a final sigh. Perhaps the most dramatic work I heard during these days was John Chowning’s Voices (2005, rev. 2011), for soprano and electronics. Soprano Amy Petrongelli entered tentatively from stage left while the audience was still settling down. In her rich, mellow voice, sometimes amplified and sometimes not, she sang excerpts from various Greek poets (no texts provided) in microtonal intervals, turning and gesturing here and there, as she walked slowly to center stage, and then ascended to the higher levels provided. Meanwhile the electronics both commented on, and incorporated her voice in amplified droplets, becoming louder, almost drowning Petrongelli’s voice as she started down the stairs to end the work stage center on an extended low note supported by low-pitched electronics. This was altogether a dramatic mix of visual and sonic beauty.

John Zorn’s À Rebours (in memoriam György Ligeti), commissioned by the TFCM, was premièred by Fred Sherry as solo cellist, and a group of nine players comprising mostly New Fromm players on flute, clarinet, percussion, harp, violin, viola, and cello. The work begins with Sherry’s solo introduction, to which the other instruments slowly join in long phrases, building to a noisy cacophony with some pauses. The phrases then morph into really beautiful individual instrumental sounds and harmonies to close.

Saturday afternoon’s concert, in the Theatre rather than Ozawa Hall, was a bit of a disappointment, and not just because the performers were all students, save one New Fromm Player; all performances were polished. The program included only three long works of fiendish difficulty. The order of the announced program was wisely changed so that it opened with Jonathan Keren’s Multiscala (2007), for mandolin and string trio. This turns out to be a combination that does not work very well, because when the dynamics are loud, the mandolin completely covers the string trio, making their lines inaudible. The piece stops and starts a lot, and the most balanced section involves pizzicato for all.

This was followed by Jo Kondo’s Beginning, Middle, and End (1987), for flute/bass flute and string quartet. Kondo provided soft, fragmented phrases, nevertheless connected by common pitches and harmony, the same basic harmony being treated in different ways. George Flynn’s fifty-minute Pieces of Night (Three American Nocturnes), for solo piano, is part of a longer work written between 1986 and 1989 in response to the Vietnam War. The three Nocturnes, performed with amazing skill by Nolan Pearson, were interspersed with two “Myocloni” (Muscle spasms), performed on another piano by the composer. The Nocturnes are subtitled (respectively) Turmoil, Nightmare, and Tumult and Lullaby. “Turmoil” begins gently with single pitches, but quickly leads to the “turmoil,” based on much repetition of loud harmonies and pitches. “Nightmare” generally explores the lower range of the piano and makes use of repetitive arm slams. “Tumult and Lullaby” are much like the second Nocturne, generating the question, How much repetition can a person stand?

Sunday evening’s “Prelude” concert was performed in its entirety by the amazing long-time advocate of contemporary music, pianist Ursula Oppens. Jason Eckardt’s Cuts (1996), retains the “harmonic, rhythmic, and textural characteristics: as invariant, while the music’s registral, dynamic, and timbral aspects witness continual mutation.” The result is a piece that begins with noisy clusters in the bass, changing to high, random, small clusters, then a quieter series of chords, slowing down at the end—again, repetition is constant. Milton Babbitt’s It Takes Twelve to Tango (1984) is a witty, two-and-a-half-minute twelve-tone tango, performed accordingly. Bernard Rands’ three-movement Tre Espressioni (1960) was the earliest work of the Festival, and well worth resurrecting. It makes pointillistic use of individual pitches and small chords, and Rands certainly knows how to pick the right notes for each sound or group. Jo Kondo’s High Window (1996) is characterized by transparency, a constant beat, and repeated chords in the upper registers punctuated by low single notes. Tobias Picker’s Four Études for Ursula (1996) provided a fitting climax for the program, in that three of its four movements were fast and difficult. The third movement, “Legato espressivo,” provides a melody in the right hand while the left counters with either a melody or chords. Of the fourth movement, the composer writes that it “studies the difficulties of polyrhythm, simultaneous melodic lines, and expansive chords in the context of sheer bravura and pianistic force . . . a study in endurance.” You get the idea.

As usual, the final concert of the Festival comprised works for full orchestra — in this case mostly huge, with eight double-basses—conducted by different student composers: Case Scaglione, Ken-David Masur, and Robert Treviño, with the finale conducted by TFCM faculty member, the expert Stefan Asbury. Ho’s opening Fanfare was played this time from downstage right, setting the tone for Andrew Norman’s Drip Blip Sparkle Spin Glint Glide Glow Float Flop Chop Pop Splatter Splash (2005), commissioned by the Minnesota Orchestra for its Young People’s Concerts. Whatever ones age, the work establishes a high energy level and shows off the possibilities of instrumental color in the orchestra. Jo Kondo’s In Summer (2004) begins and ends quietly,  a study in orchestral wide space and color in a very different mode. The title of Felipe Lara’s Onda (2007) means “Wave,” which is suggestive of the work’s rushes of orchestral color, beginning in the winds and harp. David Felder’s Inner Sky (1999) is a revision of an earlier work (November Sky, 1992), now for solo flutes (piccolo, flute, alto flute, bass flute), all smoothly performed in turn by New Fromm Player Marie Tachouet, four percussionists, amplified piano, strings, and computer processed sounds (also derived from pre-recorded flutes) delivered in surround sound. As might be surmised from the use of the various flutes, the work is sectional, a complex pitting of the flutes with various other instrumental and electronic colors. Christopher Rouse’s Phaethon (1986) is for very large orchestra, including a huge battery of percussion (with metal sheets of two sizes). At the speed and dynamics required, it is very difficult for the orchestra to be crisp. In fact it could be said that this is simply a loud and raucous work, except that under Stefan Asbury’s direction, it achieved intelligible shape, and brought the house down in the final enthusiastic applause of the festival.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

Before retreating upstairs to the Richards, Fowkes & Co. organ, op. 10 (2000), Porter stepped to the chancel to say that he was not going to address the fact that the “Leipziger” Chorales were written in Weimar, or that only seventeen of these “Great Eighteen” chorales were on the program, because we could read that in the program booklet. But he did wish to call attention to the three new stops installed and voiced on this organ in the summer of 2010: (1) a Schalmei 4’ in the Ruckpositiv, (2) a Vox Humana 8’ in the Hauptwerk, and (3) a Cornet 2’ in the pedal. He also told us which chorales would feature each of these stops in which voices. Characteristic Porter in his gentle attention to detail!

Like one of BMint’s other reviewers (Rebecca Marchand), I too resisted buying the entire BEMF program book, so had to find my own solutions to his two puzzles, based on recent research by the British scholar-organist Peter Williams and “our own” Christoph Wolff. Seventeen of the chorales (BWV 651-657) were probably begun before 1717 while Bach was organist in the court of Wilhelm Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Weimar. As Bach’s son, C.P.E. Bach wrote in his father’s obituary, “His grace’s delight in his playing fired him to attempt everything possible in the art of how to treat the organ. Here he also wrote most of his organ works.” The organ at the court comprised two manual keyboards and a pedal-board; hence the multiple chorales of trio texture. Bach moved to Leipzig in 1723. His revisions of BWV 651 through BWV 665, between 1739 and 1747, survive in his own hand in a manuscript (P. 271) now in Berlin. Shortly before his death in 1750, and nearly blind, he dictated revisions to BWV 666 and 667 to his student and son-in-law Johann Christoph Altnikol, who copied them posthumously into the same manuscript. (If you’re counting, that makes seventeen; more about BWV 668 later.)

Porter was committed to playing all the “Leipziger” Chorales, but not necessarily in order, with inspired design of his own intelligence. They were presented in two “programs,” one beginning at 2:00 and one precisely at 3:15 as he announced. Both began with chorales functioning as “openers,” specifically BWV 651, “Fantasia super Komm Heiliger Geist” (Program 1) and BWV 652, the entirely fugal “Komm, Heiliger Geist” (Program 2). Program 1 seemed intended to show off various individual chorales that made good use of the trio texture of the two manuals and pedal and revealed Bach’s myriad ways of treating the chorale melody. The cantus firmus (i.e., the chorale tune) was sometimes in the soprano, and sometimes in the pedal; sometimes treated homophonically with an imitative introduction to each phrase, sometimes with the addition of many sequences. The most elaborate was the last, the long “O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig” (BWV 656), in three verses, with its wild, chromatic maneuvering near the end.

The air conditioning was turned on for the second program, no doubt at Porter’s instigation, because he was perspiring heavily up there, but at quiet times it was a bit intrusive. He had designed this program to compare contrasting settings of three chorales: Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland (BWV 659-661), Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr (BWV 662-664), and Jesus Christus, unser heiland (BWV 666, 665, i.e. in reverse order, so that 665, “sub communione,” i.e. with its extended length probably used during communion, full of chromaticism ended the program). All three of the Allein Gott settings used the trio texture, but with the cantus firmus in a different key- or pedal-board. The Nun komm settings were highly contrasted, heightened by Porter’s strong registrations. The final Jesus Christus pair bore the most differentiated treatment by Bach himself.

These Achtzehn Choräle von verschiedener Art (Eighteen chorales of a different art), the title under which they were first published together in the complete works of 1875, have rarely been recorded in their entirety, much less performed live in one sitting. This concert was a stupendous accomplishment for the modest Mr. Porter. Moreover, the wisdom and clarity of his registrations, and our ability to hear every voice at every minute, was absolutely revelatory. His tempos were never rushed, but lively—e.g. the O Lamm Gottes umschuldig (BWV 656), last on Program 1, with its gentle tactus. Several members of the audience were following their own scores, and no wonder. This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to hear and compare these magnificent works in the hands of a brilliant organist on an appropriate instrument.

Oh yes, the eighteenth chorale! After a thunderous ovation, Porter with great difficulty quieted the applause, to ask simply if we now wished hear it. (Answer obvious.) Quite a story lies behind it, most of it without substantive evidence. The first page was entered by an unknown copyist into the P. 271 manuscript with the title, Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit (“Before your throne I now appear”). Hence it became known as the “Deathbed Chorale,” and various biographers told some version of such a story. It is now generally accepted that this was a planned reworking of an earlier chorale, Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein from the Orgelbüchlein (1715). The encore ended with a chuckle of appreciation, and reluctant willingness to let Porter go after his long ordeal. After all, it was 4:30.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

Gilles Vonsattel and Stefan Jackiw during intermission (BMInt staff photo)

Rockport Chamber Music Festival’s 30th Anniversary Season brought violinist Stefan Jackiw and pianist Gilles Vonsattel to the Shalin Liu Performance Center on Saturday, June 11. (Jackiw pronounces his Ukranian surname “Ja-keev” rather than “Ya-keev.”) Both, now in their mid-twenties, were childhood friends and prodigies — in fact, Jackiw introduced their encore (the slow movement from Brahms’s third violin and piano sonata) by saying they had first performed it together in 1993, when he was eight and Vonsattel, twelve. Both went to Roxbury Latin School, and then on to private universities for  B.A. degrees:  Jackiw to Harvard, majoring first in psychology and then in music, and Vonsattel to Columbia, majoring in political science and economics. He also has a masters degree in music from Juilliard, and Jackiw, an artist’s diploma from New England Conservatory. Of course both had further intensive musical training here and elsewhere. These similarities and their long friendship may or may not explain the unusual musical partnership evident in their performance: not just soloist and accompanist, but true artistic interaction in expressing and shaping the music, while instinctively serving its aims. Both have formidable technique, but never use it for its own sake. Rarely have I heard artists so in tune with each other in so many ways. Vonsattel’s ringing sounds never overwhelmed Jackiw’s sensitive lyricism; in fact they often seemed to grow out of each other.

The program opened with Stravinsky’s six-movement Suite italienne (1932), one of many spinoffs from his immensely popular ballet music for Pulcinella (1919-20), including one for cello and piano of the same year, and itself a revision of an earlier version of 1926. During all that time Stravinsky understood that he was arranging melodies from manuscripts (later proven forgeries or music by other composers) of the 18th-century composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, some of which were dance movements (gavotte, minuet, tarantella). Although the original overture to Pulcinella (here, “Introduzione”) is marked Allegro moderato, it is usually played at a stately tempo, more Moderato than Allegro. The Jackiw-Vonstattel duo took this and the following movements at a much faster speed than the orchestral versions of the ballet. Thus the gavotte, for example, was more rapid than could be danced. Nevertheless the piece served as an introduction to the extremely romantic, yet delicate approach to performance taken particularly by Jackiw.

The apex of the concert for the audience was Brahms’s Violin Sonata no. 1, in G major, op. 78 (1878-79). Here the performers’ quiet intensity was most apparent, appropriate, and well received. This is a difficult piece for the pianist, with wide leaps that must be accomplished quickly without too much seeming effort, while the violinist enters and leaves with gentle wisps, expanding into much larger gestures, and long passages of double stops. Balance becomes crucial, and this they achieved with magical aplomb. Jackiw introduced the work, noting that the third movement makes reference to Brahms’s earlier “Regenlied” (Rain song). According to a 1995 article by Dillon Palmer, references to the song exist in all three movements, and Brahms indeed wanted the connections to be noticed.

After intermission we heard Luigi Dallapiccola’s Sonatina canonica su capricci di Niccol1ò Paganini (1942-43), for solo piano. In his introduction to the work Mr. Vonsattel described it as “deranged but affectionate,” a most apt description of this short, almost humorous piece, written in hiding, one could imagine as an obstinate response to Mussolini’s repressive Nazi policies during this time. (Dallapiccola’s wife was Jewish.) Indeed Dallapiccola wrote in 1953, “One day, in a mood of Galgenhumor (gallows humor), I wrote the Sonatina canonica … in a way as proof that … I was able to write in regular tonality, with a stated theme.” Each of the movements is based on one of Paganini’s violin caprices and requires difficult passage work. Vonsattel brought them off in just Dallapiccola’s spirit, with his characteristic clear pedaling and close dynamic control.

The final work was Richard Strauss’s only Violin and Piano Sonata, op. 18, written in 1887 at the end of his student days. It is a large (long) work, full of bombast, but also of surprisingly long, soft passages contrasting with the same dense complexity.  Nevertheless the performers triumphed with this seldom heard work whose exuberant “Finale” constitutes almost half the piece. The encore then further rewarded the audience, which honored the mood of each piece with a moment of respectful silence before applauding.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

The program opened with a short Anthem for chorus alone by Cleveland composer Andrew Rindfleisch (b. 1963). This was commissioned by Burleigh for the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, which she also conducts, and premiered at the Library of Congress in February, 2009. The text is “an English version of Psalm 130,” according to the composer’s brief program note. Although this was an a capella piece, and the CPM’s diction is excellent, it was a shame that the chosen text (same or different from the English of Luther’s — see below) was not printed in the program, as was the case with the other works. It was a tough but grateful opener because of the need to maintain shimmering, sustained Debussy-like harmonies; even so, the chorus excelled. A chorus member sounded a minor third on the piano, and off they went, simply declaiming the text as softly as possible. The ending was stunning on the text, “Amen:” the altos sang a long sustained pitch, then taken over by the sopranos, as if one voice (even though a different color), using circular breathing. Such a simple, unusual, and successful device!

The next work, also a capella, was Francis Poulenc’s Exultate Deo, based on Psalm 81. Composed in 1941, it reflects his earlier deep study of Bach’s chorales and accordingly presents the brief but joyful text — all about the timbrel, psaltery, lute, and trumpet — in a declamatory fashion. The CPM did it proud.

Felix Mendelssohn’s Aus tiefer Noth schrei’ ich zu Dir (“Out of deep distress I call to you”), Psalm 130, was written in Rome in October, 1830. It is the only one of a number of his “Bachian chorale cantatas” that was published during his lifetime, as the first in his Drei Kirchenmusiken op.23 (Bonn, 1832). It is in five movements, of which the third and fourth were omitted in this performance, probably because of the solo voices and organ required. The first movement is a straightforward, fourteen-bar setting of the chorale, with German text as translated by Martin Luther. The second, using the same text, treats the chorale tune fugally, beginning with the basses and working straight up to the sopranos (although only the basses and the sopranos have the tune). The fifth movement is again a straightforward, but different setting of the same chorale, using the text of the second verse. Again the large chorus of seventy-five members enunciated clearly. Inevitably the individual chorale parts were not as crystal clear as one would hope, but admirable given the large numbers of non-professional singers.

The central work of the evening was a CPM commission, Expectans expectavi, composed by Minneapolis-based Abbie Betinis (b. 1980), premièred on this occasion. She was asked to write a piece that would complement Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. The fact that she is a three-time cancer survivor affected both the composition and the performance; CPM offered 200 free tickets to friends, staff, family, and cancer survivors of  the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, the Lymphoma Research Foundation, and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  The text, of the piece, in Latin, is selected from Psalms 38, 39 and 40, blaming God, yet pleading for deliverance. The work is scored for soprano soloist (Bonnie Gleason), full chorus, flutes, oboe, English horn, bassoon, French horns, harp, timpani, trumpet, trombone, tuba, piano, bass drum, cellos and basses — i.e., generally a low instrumental timbre without clarinets, violins or violas. The work is a palindrome, beginning and ending quietly with the title text (in English, “I waited patiently for the Lord”). After repeating that line many times at the start, the music builds rapidly to a fortissmo, then softens briefly (“Hear my prayer, O Lord”) before introducing the soprano solo, “O Lord, make me know my end.” Again a rise to fortissimo on “Hear me, hear me, hear me.” The final plaint, actually the kernel or generating text, “Amove a me plagas tuas” (“Remove your scourges from me”) is set apart just before the piece ends with slow, quiet, sustained phrases in the winds, softly punctuated with pizzicati in the strings, and finally only the latter. It is a striking and dramatic piece, full of dissonance, as one might expect, with the chorus and instruments forging separate paths.

After intermission the composer took to the stage to deliver informal remarks about the generative musical devices in the piece, and then the work was performed again, to standing ovation, including previously overlooked recognition of Bonnie Gleason’s fine if brief performances in the central sections, soaring above the low instruments.

The afternoon culminated with Igor Stravinsky’s magnificent Symphony of Psalms, commissioned by Sergei Koussevitzky for the 50th anniversary of the BSO in 1930, on that occasion performed with the members of the Cecilia Society. It uses two verses from Psalm 38, three from Psalm 39 (including “Expectans, expectavi dominum”), and almost all of Psalm 150 (numbering from the Vulgate). As Stravinsky has said, “It is not a symphony in which I have included Psalms to be sung. On the contrary, it is the singing of the Psalms that I am symphonizing.” The instrumentation is a fuller version of Betinis’s work, i.e. same instruments but more of them. In this performance they sometimes overwhelmed the chorus. But the instruments have a lot to say in this piece — many repetitions of same or similar motives, sudden punctuation, and then on to something else. The opening of the second Psalm, a difficult fugal play among flutes and oboes, beginning with two parts and swelling to six, was perfectly executed with the verve it needs. Nothing, however is as memorable as the altos’ opening and persistent half-step (e-f-f-e) on “Exaudi orationem meam, Domine” (“Hear my prayer, O Lord”), or the chorus’s opening of the third Psalm with the tentative, ethereal, “Alleluia,” followed by a rest, and then the tenors and basses, chanting in unison a firm, almost hammering, “Laudate,” repeatedly. A brief reminiscence of these two phrases closes the work poignantly, yet powerfully. This caring, nurturing performance certainly did it justice.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

The first “B” was Samuel Barber (1910-1981), represented by his Summer Music, op. 31, composed for the Detroit Chamber Music Society in 1956 at the height of his productive career. It has become a standard in the wind quintet repertoire, performed here by Boldin (flute), Nancy Dimock (oboe), Kelli O’Connor (clarinet), Elah Grandel (bassoon), and Whitacre Hill (horn). The piece comprises short sections with changing textures, introduced by the horn paired with the bassoon. Such pairings are an organizing principle, soon joined by “twitterings” from the two high winds, singly, and in pairs. Particularly enchanting was the expressive playing of Dimock, also constantly watching her colleagues for cues. The ensemble playing was indeed exemplary.

The only extant “B” was composer and clarinetist Derek Bermel (b. 1967), whose music has been performed in Boston at least three other times this season. He is known for making music from a multiplicity of genres: those of jazz, rock, gospel, Jerusalem, Ghana, and Brazil. In 2001 he studied with a Bulgarian folk clarinetist, from whence came the inkling for Tied Shifts (2004) for flute (Boldin), clarinet/bass clarinet (O’Connor), violin (Katherine Winterstein), cello (Rafael Popper-Keizer), piano (Esther Ning Yau), and percussion (William Manley). The instrumentation itself suggests pairings (ranges, or winds, strings, piano/percussion), which were evident throughout in ingenious ways, beginning in the first movement with violin+flute. The title refers to the Bulgarian folk practice of tying melodic notes over a bar line, in various compound meters (5/8, 7/8, etc.), so that the meters are obscured. The tied notes are often ornamented with mordents — “rapid alternation of the main note with a subsidiary note a step below” (Grove), which becomes an “obsessively repetitive cell” (composer). The first movement, “Driving, relentless,” makes use of constant repeated notes and phrases to achieve its announced effect. The second, “Rocking gently,” begins with a diatonic hymn for violin, cello, and piano. This becomes overlain with counter melodies in different keys by the flute and clarinet — a simple, but effective, device. Percussion (marimba and xylophone) is often paired with piano, reinforcing or stretching, or echoing. At one point there is a cascade of descending scales falling upon drums. The coda becomes more and more dissonant. All in all, a triumph.

B is for Beethoven (I suppose it couldn’t be avoided, but wish it had), a poor fit. The choice was his Sonata for piano and violin, no. 4, in a minor, op. 23, written in 1800 and dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries, a Viennese banker in whose home Beethoven was frequently a guest at the time. It was performed by the brilliant Russian guest pianist, Sergey Schepkin, and Chameleon core member, violinist Joanna Kurkowicz. The piano’s top was raised to the fullest, and the sound of this instrument in the narrow hall most often obscured the violin. Both performers played well, no question, but with the Sonata’s too-fast and exaggerated, contrasting tempi, in a very hot overcrowded, unventilated, room, one was ready for intermission.

Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) wrote his Piano Quintet No. 1 over a period of three years (1921-23) while he was serving as founding director of the Cleveland Institute of Music. A big, romantic work, it is dedicated to Harold Bauer and the Lenox Quartet. The title of its three movements, “Agitato,” “Andante mistico,” and “Allegro energico” suggest the ominous, hanging, unresolved feelings that are built up and released throughout the work. There are many virtuosic techniques required, including double stops, and quarter tones among the strings in the first and third movements. According to Gabriel Langfur’s program notes, Bloch “insisted that he was not trying to . . . draw on non-Western music, but rather, to inflect the Western scale system in order to further intensify the enormous range of the emotional material.” Until they read these notes, some in the audience assumed the performance was out of tune. A look at the score makes one appreciate how difficult the quarter-tone notation is to make music of this successfully, particularly when the ensemble includes a piano, which cannot bend notes at all. And it is nearly impossible for the strings to bend together at the rapid rate required. Perhaps the tension among these sounds is what Bloch desired. The performers, Kurkowicz and Winterstein (violins), Scott Woolweaver, (viola), Popper-Keizer (cello), and Schepkin (piano), gave it their all, with intense concentration and expressivity, as long supported melodic lines morphed into even longer ones, without benefit of cadence. An extended coda near the end of the third movement, developed in the major mode with rich harmonies. It was almost overwhelming in its rich sonorities, ultimately resolving all that went before. An enthusiastic audience showered the performers with well-deserved applause.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

Lassus is said to have been “one of the most prolific and versatile of 16th-century composers, and in his time the best-known and most widely admired musician in Europe.” Born in Flanders, he became a musician in the ducal court of Mantua when he was a teenager. From there he entered various court services in Rome and Naples, and after a brief period of return to Antwerp, fetched up in Munich in 1556 for the rest of his life in a ducal court where Italian musicians were increasingly hired. So who’s to say whether Flemish or Italian influences are most prominent in his music? In fact he used both styles as they suited his purpose. Indeed, no doubt at his urging, in 1555 the Antwerp printer Tylman (Tielman) Susato published a mixed collection usually referred to as Lassus’s ‘Opus 1,’ with two entirely different titles, the first in Flemish for distribution in the North, and later, in Italian, (using the same music plates), destined to be marketed in Italy. Lassus’s subsequent collections were published all over Europe wherever there were printers with music fonts.

His versatility was clearly evident in Exultemus’s programming of well chosen and beautifully balanced selections from literally hundreds of the composer’s vocal works. There is no way to know when most of these were written, and hence nearly impossible to present his music chronologically. Yet Exultemus nearly managed to do this, having done their homework extremely well, represented in their modest program notes.

The centerpiece of the first half comprised five selections from the four-voiced motets, Prophetiae Sibyllarum, from a manuscript source of about 1560. The sung Prologue (in Latin) explains: “These are songs which proceed chromatically. They are the poems in which the twelve Sibyls, one after the other, once sang the hidden mysteries of our salvation.” All twelve poems are in dactylic hexameter, set in the most chromatic of Lassus’s music — presumably to heighten the mystical nature of the poetry. The direction of chromatic change is almost always upward, further enhancing the inspirational effect.

I have to say that here, and often elsewhere, the singers tended to drag behind countertenor Martin Near’s direction, apparently to revel in their gorgeous sounds while letting diction go astray, particularly word endings. The group stood in a semi-circle, with Near approximately in the center, depending on the voicing. If one wanted to understand the text, which became difficult to follow in the program without vocal cues, then one simply watched Near’s mouth, which emphasized the shapes of the words. (I was sitting in the third row, where hearing was certainly not a problem.) On the other hand their well-matched voices really did make gorgeous sounds, with nary a slip in intonation, even in this difficult chromatic music.

The program opened with “Lectio Octava” from the composer’s Sacrae lectiones ex Propheta Job, another collection of about the same period, this one published in 1565. The text comes from the depths of Job’s rages and also from his hope that he will be redeemed — very strong stuff. Not a sibilant, in almost every word, was heard in the three verses, a worrisome omen. In a brilliant stroke, however, Exultemus presented another “Lectio Octava” from a second collection of readings from the Book of Job and written almost twenty years later. The text is the same, but set in two verses instead of three. This appeared midway through the second half of the program, so there was no chance to compare them. I must admit: I haven’t been to a library to do my homework on this one. (I don’t know of an article that compares them either.) But I’m happy to say, diction had improved.

The rest of the first half included a French chanson from the first version of  Lassus’s ‘Opus 1,’ “Susane un jour d’amour solicitée” (from the Book of Daniel) in which Susanna tells two old men leering at her that she would rather die an innocent. This was followed by a German drinking song, “Der Wein, der schmeckt mir also wohl” (“Wine tastes good to me”). Here the diction was far better, partly because of the boisterousness of the song, and partly because German is a more explosive language anyway. These were both sung by a smaller group: countertenor Pagenkopf, tenor Anderson, baritone Scoggin, and bass Profit, with the addition of baritone Fuggate in the first and tenor McSweeney in the second. The first half ended with a villanesca from the Italian version of ‘Opus 1,’ “No giorno t’haggio havere intra ‘ste mane” (Someday I shall catch hold of you). Each verse of two lines ends with the rollicking refrain, “Fugimi quanto voi” (Run from me as much as you want), sung with a clear sense of taunting, relishing the repetition.

The centerpiece of the second half comprised five excerpts from Lagrime di San Pietro for seven voices, the last published works by Lassus, written when he was said to be in a “religious melancholia.” They set texts of the Neapolitan poet Luigi Tansillo (1510–1568), focusing on St. Peter’s feelings at the Crucifixion and about his denial. The title page of the collection calls these works motets; others have referred to them as madrigals. They make use of a “call-and-response” device, contrasting high and low voices, usually within the same poetic line, sometimes overlapping. The second half began with “Salve Regina misericordiae,” a four-voiced motet (sung by all eight) from his Beatissimae Virginis Mariae, published in 1586. Although a motet, its character is more like a chant in falsobordone style, ending on an open fifth. This was followed by the short “Musica, Dei donum optimi” for six voices, from Lassus’s last motet collection, Cantiones sacrae (1594), and another drinking song, “Ad primum morsum” (At the first bite, if I do not drink, I am dead) from the same collection, vigorously sung, as you can imagine.

The final work, “O la, o che bon eccho!” is from his Libro de villanelle, moresche, et altre canzoni, published in 1581, but probably written many years earlier. The key word here is “echo.” Thus the octet split into two quartets, one remaining in the chancel, and the other moving quickly to the rear balcony, while Exultemus General Director and founding soprano Shannon Canavin made some announcements. Many smiles ensued as the gentlemen tried out the echo effects (as directed by the text), bade their farewell, and then sang, “Basta! Basta!” (Enough! enough!), to much applause.

One brief comment about the space: with its gently pointed (not arched) ceiling over the narrow nave, this church is a superb venue for intimate music-making, where huge crowds are not expected.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

The “Orpheus of Wellesley”? Hard to say if on this celebratory occasion Orpheus was the Dutch composer, organist, and teacher Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621), who was known in his time by that moniker. Or Orpheus could easily have been reincarnated in Wellesley’s incredibly gifted organist, Mr. Christie, who has been the organist at the BSO since 1978 and who also teaches at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester and Oberlin College. Perhaps Orpheus is the organ itself (specifically, Opus 72 among Fisk’s oeuvres), or Charles Brenton Fisk (1925-1983) himself. Or, I might even propose Catherine Mills Davis Professor of Music Emeritus Owen Jander, whose vision and persistence against difficult odds in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s brought this magnificent instrument to pass. Octogenarian Jander, who sat beaming in the back row, wrote a splendid essay for the program notes about the gestation of this instrument. An essay by Fisk’s widow Virginia Lee Stone (Wellesley, ’55), who is currently chairwoman of the board of C. B. Fisk, Inc., went briefly over the same ground, noting that what was learned from the study of seventeenth-century North German organs and from the firm’s continuing studies has become part of its corporate history “and a key element of C. B. Fisk’s unique style and sound.”

Unfortunately the program notes were not accompanied by the organ’s stop list on this occasion. A description and picture of the organ (with stop list) can be seen here — the console is hidden behind the Brustpedalia. The description also reveals that the instrument is tuned at a1=440 (modern concert pitch), but in 1/4 comma Meantone temperament. The latter means (among other things) that there is a difference between F-sharp and G-flat, D-sharp and E-flat, etc., and thus the black keys are split, adding to the organist’s difficulty. Although the organ is armed with an electric blower, for concerts of this nature a mechanical solution is preferred: a student calcant (“bellows treader”) is engaged to climb up, step on the upper lever of the bellows, and ride it down with her body weight. Both the calcant and the single registrant, who had to run constantly behind the instrument from one side to the other, were given well deserved applause at the end.

The concert, performed without intermission, was designed to alternate the music of Sweelinck with that of his more famous students. It opened with his joyful, free-form Toccata (C2), a relatively simple statement compared to what would follow. It was full of running scalar passage work, immediately letting the large audience know (if they didn’t already) about the clarity of both the instrument and Christie’s articulation. His tempi are just right, never too fast, but rather reveling in the brilliant but warm sounds this instrument can make. It was followed by a setting of the chorale tune, Da Jesus an dem Creutze stundt (SSWV 113), by Sweelinck’s pupil, Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654). These “Psalms” were written, as he stated in the forward to their publication, “for organists to play with Christian congregations,” in alternation, not as accompaniment. Its six verses begin with a relatively straightforward presentation of the tune, but with a contrapuntal rather than hymn-like treatment. The next five verses display as many other techniques: e.g., the tune plus a running melody in two-part counterpoint, the melody in a low reed (the Krummhorn 8’?) plus contrapuntal plays above, and finally as a chromatic cancrizan taking full advantage of the instrument’s bright dissonances.

The second pairing featured Sweelinck’s Poolse almande, or “Polish allemande,” a homophonic dance in ABA form, with eight variations. Here the emphasis is on harmonic rather than contrapuntal variation. The Hanoverian Melchior Schildt (ca. 1592-1667) was represented by another dance piece, the Paduana Lagrima (usually known as his “Pavana Lachrymae” because it is an arrangement of the first piece in Dowland’s Lachrymae (1604), whose tune is familiar. It is full of seemingly improvisatory runs that just simply rippled out of Christie’s hands, a gentle stream in a quiet brook. We also heard Schildt’s chorale variations on Herzlich lieb hab ich dich, o Herr, where the tune is designed as a cantus firmus with decorative fillips above, or harmonized in four parts with runs trickling over and under.

The third began with Sweelinck’s Fantasia à 3, which as the title implies, is improvisatory. The listener has to marvel at the clarity of Christie’s articulation in cascades of runs, of which, thanks to his creative use of registration over all, we never tire. Heinrich Scheidemann (ca. 1595-1663) is said to have extended the techniques of both Sweelinck and Scheidt. His four-movement Magnificat settings explore all eight of the tones, each in a cyclic form. We heard the Magnificat VIII Toni (WV 66), marked by many contrasts in a sort of call and response technique (with different stops engaged for each). Here Christie’s skill at registration really came to the fore in a calm but virtuosic display of timbres.

In his always affable manner, Christie announced that although he had planned to use every single one of the instrument’s thirty-four stops, he found he had omitted the trumpet (Trommeten 8′) and the cymbal (Zimbal II)—the latter much beloved because this organ features an external brass Zimbalsterne (cymbal star) at the apex of the center rank of pipes (see the picture referred to in the above). When the stop is engaged, the wind gently blows the star, causing it to twirl slowly and glitter in the soft light. To that end, he inserted into the program a short anonymous Dutch Almande from a manuscript known as the Suzanne van Soldt MS. (London, British Library, Add.29485, copied in 1599). Many smiles ensued, and we all understood that this performance also served in place of a well-deserved encore.

The final work was Sweelinck’s exhilarating Fantasia cromatica (d1) where the power of this instrument’s tuning comes into full display. The theme descends chromatically (by forceful half-steps), and after some turns at the bottom, re-ascends. This is then repeated with variations, culminating in a full and jubilant cadence at the end — a fitting conclusion to this landmark concert.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

The intimate acoustics and physical setting of the Shalin Liu are of course stunning to begin with. In the water that could be seen beyond the stage, there were no sailboats yet, but rather one lone kayak. The colors of dusk deepened into a black night during the concert. Then the glass wall and stage lights provided reflections of the performers’ backs as they fairly danced and bent into their music, caressing it knowingly.

Tetzlaff has performed in Boston recently in programs of solo violin music, of violin and piano music (with Leif Ove Andsnes), and as a soloist with the Boston Symphony in all three of that concert’s works by Mozart, Birtwistle and Bartók. (The links are to BMInt reviews.) Next we need to hear the Tetzlaff Quartet! We are so fortunate to experience firsthand the wondrous sounds this consummate musician makes with every stroke of his discretely delineated bow arm. As far as I know, Weithaas has not yet performed here, and I hope we can soon look forward to more of her dynamic music making. The real treat was hearing them together — truly together, almost as one instrument, even playing from the same scores. They both use twenty-first-century violins built by Stefan-Peter Greiner of Bonn, although they look very different. Hers is a larger (thicker) instrument built in 2004. His, from 2002, is modeled on a Guarneri del Gesú. They were tuned together to perfection, enabling long sustained unisons. To write such things for just two instruments is a compositional no-no because the overtones are almost bound to conflict — unisons for three or more instruments are OK. But theirs made their dramatic impact with no flinches. The violinists used comparatively little vibrato, even in the big romantic works; rather, the beauty of their music making depended on warm, judicious bowing.

Nevertheless, their performance styles are very different, and this nagged a bit throughout. Tetzlaff’s is impassioned but internal, sometimes seeming even cool and suppressed. Yet the focus is always on projecting the music in such a way that we too are focused on it, and not on him as the artist. Weithaas’s exuberance is almost contagious with her vigorous gestures and facial expressions, which may be engaging to greater numbers of the audience, but is sometimes distracting from the music.

And speaking of the audience, while most sat still in rapt attention, a few members seemed to be quite restless. Those few rattled their seats as they shifted position, dropped programs, and coughed absent-mindedly, even sneezing, an act which can certainly be easily suppressed. We need to get the late critic Michael Steinberg’s classic article from a BSO program booklet back in print. There is something like it available in his For the Love of Music (2006, with Larry Roth): “Less than one tenth of coughing at concerts is caused by bona fide respiratory distress. For the rest, the pianist Claude Frank years ago put it to me very simply: ‘It means one thing: they’re not listening.’ . . . Most coughing comes from inattention or out and out boredom. . . . [T]he cougher . . . is not following the story, else he would not turn his bronchial tubes inside out, fortissimo, at a hushed moment of greatest suspense.”

I haven’t been so distracted in a long time. But maybe that was because these noises conflicted so blatantly with the quality of the concert, the captivating contrasts the shaping of the phrases, the incredibly hushed pianissimos. Yes, back to the music, please! It is appropriate that the concert began with a work by Leclair, the so-called founder of the 18th-century French violin school, who was a dancer as well as a violinist and composer. Written at the height of his career, his op. 3 Sonatas were self-published in Paris in 1730 as engraved by Louise Roussel, whom he married that year; they have been republished with great frequency through 2005, attesting to their popularity. The sixth, in D major, is a classic slow-fast-slow-fast sonata, the slow movements being more or less preludes to the fast ones. In this case the slow movements and the final one make good use of double stops to enrich the texture. The fast tempi were quite rambunctious and jolly, although I’m not sure Leclair would have been happy dancing at that speed.

The first group of Bartók Duos (1931) came next, eight works of short duration with highly descriptive titles capturing various performance styles: “Transylvanian Dance,” “Fairy Tale,” “Burlesque,” “Sorrow,” “Pizzicato” (just that, on both fiddles), “Bagpipes,” “New Year’s Greeting,” and “Arabian Song,” all played in a manner to project the folk characteristics of Bartók’s Hungarian and Romanian sources. The second group of six (after intermission) comprised “Harvest Song,” “Serbian Dance,” “Song,” “Wedding Song,” “Mosquito Dance” (which elicited a chuckle from the audience), and “Romanian Dance,” all tight little jewels. It was in these pieces that the artists were best matched — you almost couldn’t tell who was playing which part unless the bowing was vastly different.

The Belgian composer Beriot was known chiefly as a violin virtuoso, and toured widely throughout Europe. His three-movement Duo concertant in g minor, op. 57, no. 1 (ca. 1840) is one of a large number of such pieces, variously titled, which have long been gone from the concert stage, but because of their difficulty, are sometimes used as teaching pieces. It is clear from the original publication (Paris, 1847), “servant d’introduction à ceux de Viotti” (serving as an introduction to those of Viotti) that this set was written in homage to Giovanni Battista Viotti, with whom Beriot had wished to study twenty years earlier. Nevertheless, this one could stand a revival, with its ravishing slow movement in E-flat major sounding deceptively easy with its burbling secondo accompaniment, and its spirited final Rondo ending with a statement of the theme in G major. Beriot was known for basing his work on the technical difficulties of Paganini, but also for his own characteristically melting sweetness, both combined in this spell-binding period piece.

The last work, Sonata for two violins in a minor by famed Belgian violinist-composer Ysaÿe, was by far the most flamboyant and difficult. Tetzlaff, who up until now had assumed the role of violino secondo, now stepped up to primo, but the work was not easy for either of them, or the audience. Its three long movements are hard to grasp, appearing to be a series of disjointed, dense eruptions, sometimes overlapping. The first, Maestoso movement is noted for its abrupt four-note theme, that later appears in a fugal setting, or at least with imitative entries that drift off. The second movement is a bit gentler, but no less meandering. In the third, Allegro vivo e con fuoco, as you can imagine from that marking, no holds are barred. The Sonata, written in 1915 as his playing was beginning to fail from health problems, is dedicated to Ysaÿe’s friend and former pupil, Queen Elisabeth of Belgium. It was not published, however, until 1967, reproduced by Éditions Ysaÿe from the holograph in the Musée Ysaÿe in Liège. Its title translated is, Sonata for two solo violins (emphasis mine)—absolutely an appropriate finale for these two “Violin Virtuosi” of the program.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

Left to right- Gertrude (Amy Oraftik), Roméo (John Irvin) and Juliette (Chelsea Basler) and Friar Laurence, (Heath Sorenson) (Boston University Photography)

We’re yet not sure about spring this year, but meanwhile, by all means indulge yourself in the traditional seasonal sentiments and go hear/see the Boston University Opera Institute production of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette at the BU Theatre on Huntington Avenue, Thursday, April 21 (the performance I heard), through Sunday, April 24. You’ll forget about all the bad rap you have ever heard about late-nineteenth-century French music and will simply wallow in this glorious, romantic opera. There are alternating casts for Thursday/Saturday, and Friday/Sunday

The libretto was written by prolific team of Jules Barbier and Michel Carré during the first three months of 1865, closely following Shakespeare’s text, apparently using none of the existing French translations of his play. The BU production was sung in French with uncredited English supertitles that unfortunately did not at all reflect Shakespeare’s original — except for the one line in Act II, “Parting is such sweet sorrow…” Gounod began drafting the opera the following month (April), and finished in July, taking over a year to orchestrate it and add an extensive wedding tableau to Act IV, considerably — and probably wisely — shortened here. There were many changes during the original rehearsals: all the spoken dialogues were turned into compelling recitatives; the choral prelude was added, as was Juliette’s familiar Waltz aria, “Je veux vivre,” a concession to the Juliette of the first performance during the Exposition Universelle in 1867 at the Théâtre Lyrique. The opera immediately became a hit in Paris, London (Covent Garden), New York (Academy of Music), and throughout Europe. Its popularity in this country has dimmed compared to its continuing luster in France, although it was revived at the Metropolitan Opera last month.

The Opera Institute at BU, directed by Sharon Daniels, was founded in 1987 by then Dean Phyllis Curtin, who is still an artistic advisor. It is a “post-graduate institute for the advanced singer preparing for an operatic career.” Twelve are chosen to participate in a two-year residency for the transitional period between student and professional performance.

As student performances go, this one, conducted by William Lumpkin, is about as “professional” as you can get. All the soloists in this performance deserve high praise both for their singing and acting abilities. The chorus members sang well, but their stage business was a bit awkward, particularly in the ballroom dance routines no doubt unfamiliar to this generation. My impression is that the stage director finally gave up and had them doing a Hava Nagila as they exited from the ball in Act I.

Roméo (John Irvin) and Juliette (Chelsea Basler), on the other hand, were spectacular singers and actors, especially in this production where costumes were deliberately ambiguous (period + modern dress), and love scenes explicit (undressed in bed) but tasteful. Ms. Basler’s voice is a mature dramatic coloratura, with an easy soaring range that is comfortable without ever straining. Mr. Irvin’s tenor voice also lies in a comfortable lyric range, also never strained, but unfortunately frequently overwhelmed by the augmented trombones of the BU Chamber Orchestra that Gounod seemed to pair with him all too often. The duets written for Roméo and Juliette were ravishing in their hands, and their voices well matched.

Vocally the most engaging supporting role was played by Roméo’s page, Stephano, a demanding “pants” role sung here by soprano Rachel Hauge, who as a Montague, has a long coloratura solo in Act III taunting the Capulets. Juliette’s father was well sung and acted by bass Adam Cannedy, particularly in Act I but a little blandly later. Lady Capulet’s nephew, Tybalt, was vigorously sung and well portrayed by the nimble tenor Martin Bakari. The somewhat boring role vocally of Friar Laurence, who secretly performs a brief wedding of the two lovers, was resonantly sung with appropriate dignity by bass Heath Sorenson. Roméo’s friend, Mercutio, who sings only in the first act, but is mortally injured in the third, was perfectly sung and acted by baritone Christian Smith-Kotiarek.

The BU Chamber Orchestra was just terrific: well in tune, and stylishly of the period. They were quite spread out in the sunken pit, with a few of the instruments at floor level. Kudos in particular to one of the latter, harpist Gréta Ásgeirsson, who played almost constantly as both a recitative accompanist and as part of the full orchestral ensemble.

The sets were well designed by Christopher Dills for simplicity of change, with the same basic flats throughout, well lighted by Aaron Sherkow with many ungelled lighting instruments and an unobtrusive follow spot. Just before Act III began I looked up toward the ceiling to see one of the luminaires flailing around wildly. Evidently it had become loose or aimed the wrong way, and someone was anxiously trying to heave it back up to where it belonged before the Act began; success in the nick of time.

To come around full circle, this production is well worth the trip and the time, if nothing else, for the sheer reveling in this appealing musical drama. The house was packed, and the cast held for many bows to standing ovation.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

Even so, the character of this evening’s concert was definitely Hausmusik (music performed in private homes). This was emphasized by brief readings of contemporaneous documents (newspaper and diary excerpts, etc.) that were humorous to twenty-first-century ears, and revealed early Americans’ attitudes toward their music. The concert was presented in honor of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the organization, Early Music America, which does not really have anything to do with American music per se, but rather with support of early European music in the current United States. “American music”? Yes, if that means music in America: concert music written by European composers, some of whom had migrated here, and some who had not, but whose works can be documented as performed here. That documentation was richly provided by the program notes, which reflected the MOPR’s characteristically prodigious research

The concert opened and closed with the Adagio-Vivace, and Finale-Allegro movements of Haydn’s 85th Symphony (“La Reine”) arranged for flute (Suzanne Stumpf), violin (Sarah Darling), cello (Daniel Ryan), and fortepiano (Michael Bahmann), by the Bohemian hornist, composer and arranger, Ludwig Wenzel Lachnith (1745-1820). The MOPR could not prove that this arrangement was actually performed in Philadelphia, although the symphony was, in a public concert of 1792, and such reductive, as well as “sandwiching” practices, were common. The opener prepared us for the particularly rich sound quality produced by the gently vaulted ceiling over the nave in Christ Church, and the closer nearly shooed us out the door with its prestissimo tempo—it was almost a scramble, but an enthusiastic one. These were also the only two pieces performed by all the players, Bahmann on a fortepiano by Jacob Kaeser (1992), after Johann Walter (1785).

The intermission provided another occasion to “sandwich”: two sonatas by Raynor Taylor (1747-1825), a London-born major figure in the Philadelphia musical community of the time (beginning in 1795). His Sonata No. 4 in D major for cello and continuo is in three movements; the piano really is the continuo, expertly realized by Bahmann, and has few independent phrases. At the same time the cellist functions both as the soloist and as a continuo partner, reinforcing the bass line in the piano. Ryan has had plenty of experience with this phenomenon, and brought it off well in spite of the difficulty of the solo part. Taylor’s Sonata in E-flat Major, op. 2, no. 6, for violin and fortepiano is strangely dark, beginning with the Andante maestoso pomposo (delightfully exaggerated by Ms. Darling and Mr. Bahmann), but particularly in the Largo e sostenuto. The final Giga also had a dark mid-section in a minor key and was played at a stately tempo.

Ignace Pleyel (1757-1831) certainly never came to this country, but his music was indeed popular here. MOPR turned to Benjamin Carr’s Musical Journal, published in Philadelphia from 1799 to 1803 to promote his publications, among which was his arrangement of Pleyel’s Sonata in D Minor for flute (originally violin) and fortepiano (Benton 5765). The Journal contained piano music almost entirely, and this Sonata is also a charming, three-movement piece for piano with flute obligato, i.e., mostly accompanying. Bahmann’s performance emphasized the Sonata’s charm and good spirits, and Stumpf played with obliging good humor.

Next MOPR turned to another Philadelphia publisher, George E. Blake (1775-1871), whose Collection of Duetts; for Two Flutes, Clarinets or Violins; Selected and Arranged from the Works of the Best Authors was published in 1807. From this they chose works for flute and violin: two by William Shield (1748-1829), a British composer best known for his comic operas, and one Siciliana (Andantino) by Jacob Wragg, author of a Flute Preceptor published in many editions. Wragg also self-published a separate set of duets for two flutes (London, 1796), from which Carr may have selected his, announcing on the title-page that they are “composed in a pleasing & familiar style. . .“ Indeed the Siciliana was, familiar as they all are, and graceful, too, in the hands of Stumpf and Darling. The works by Shield were probably written originally for the theater, and perhaps for this reason the ladies exaggerated their characteristics. Swift as Time certainly was, and the Allegro con spirito was almost a race to the finish.

The Italian composer Giacomo Gotifredo Ferrari (1763-1842) moved to London in 1792, where he quickly became a prominent voice teacher. MOPR selected his Rondo in G major, for flute and fortepiano from Carr’s Journal, but here the flute participates more as an equal partner with the piano. Although the rondo form led to delightful variations and graces on the part of Bahmann and Stumpf, there is nevertheless an “oom-pah-PAH” rhythm that gently prevents us from taking this music too seriously.

The German born John Christopher Moller (1755-1803) did come to Philadelphia from London in 1790 and was a leader in musical life there until 1795, when he moved to New York. With Henri Capron, he managed a music store and established one of the earliest American presses devoted exclusively to music. The work listed on the program as “Piano Trio in A major, op. 4, no. 5” was originally self-published by Moller in London, ca. 1782, within his Six sonatas for the harpsichord or piano forte with a violin accompanyment & violoncello ad libitum, opera IV. This explains the texture: the piece is really a piano sonata, with the violin playing obligato, and the cello playing continuo (i.e., reinforcing the bass line). Here again Bahmann rose to the occasion stylishly, while Darling and Ryan accompanied—Darling with reticence, and Ryan with vigor.

These four core performers have developed an enviable trust and ease with each other over the years. Their playfulness was particularly appropriate in this genre. Together with the fine contextual notes and readings, this turned what could have been a yawn-producing historical exercise into a charming evening. It is to be repeated Sunday, April 10, at the First Unitarian Church in Worcester at 4:00 p.m. Details are on BMInt’s “Upcoming Events.”

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

John Cage’s String Quartet in Four Parts, written over fifty years ago, was extremely quiet. Cage began writing it in Paris in 1949, during the early years of his deep involvement in Asian aesthetics, and finished it in New York City in 1950; it was first premiered at Black Mountain College that summer by a quartet that included former NEC faculty member, violinist Robert Brink. On this occasion we heard violinists Ryan Shannon and Joinatsuru Yanai, violist Kevin Hsu, and cellist Hyoungimi Lee. Their performance, after a bit of raucous tuning, was appropriately gentle, for a piece whose dynamics range from pianissimo to piano. It was without vibrato, and absolutely together, without being square from having to count. There was lots of eye contact, and they fed each other lines beautifully, especially in the third movement, “Nearly Stationary (Winter),” which was just that; thus it was all the more difficult to attract and hold interest, but they did it. The first movement, “Quickly Flowing Along (Summer)” yielded quietly rich dissonances. The second, “Slowly Rocking (Autumn)” established a gentle tic-toc motion, and then slowed it down further. The fourth was the noisiest (by comparison), “Quodlibet (Spring).”

Michael Pisaro (b. 1961) is co-chair of the Composition Program at the California Institute of the Arts. His A Single Charm is Doubtful (2004-2006), was originally written for four unspecified “sustaining instruments.” (The title comes from a line in the first group of poems (“Objects”) in Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons.) The realization on this occasion (in order of Players 1-4) was for electronics (Neal Markowski), violin (Lauren Nelson), tuba (Beth McDonald), and marimba (David Tarantino) — the marimba “sustaining” by beating rapidly and softly on the same key. The thirteen-minute piece comprises a series of very soft, single notes, changing slowly, even microtonally, according to the composer’s pattern which may be seen here (p. 4). The piece was performed in the dark except for stand lights, which were bright. The tuba part is fiendishly difficult, requiring McDonald to attack very low notes very softly, and also do some circular breathing to extend them. She was extraordinarily successful in this, with nary a crack or a burble.

In 1987, three years before he died, Luigi Nono wrote Post-prae-ludium per Donau, for valve tuba in F and electronics, first performed at the Donaueschingen Festival that year. Although some aleatory techniques are used, the score uses non-traditional notation expressed in proportional real time, and performance directions are quite specific. Yet they set up a drama of seemingly random sounds from four surrounding speakers, generated by the quiet, initially hesitant tuba, using delay and reverberation. There are also four non-traditional playing techniques, which by now have become more common: half-valve playing, singing within the instruments, playing with vibrato, and multiphonics. Once again, McDonald showed that she is the master (mistress?) of her instrument, which is a lot more versatile than most concert-goers realize. John Mallia was the assured and sensitive controller of the electronics. The performance was stunning.

At intermission, most of the very small audience of twenty or thirty, mostly students, left. (Conservatory students are notoriously over-scheduled.) Too bad, because they missed a riveting performance of Sofia Gubaidulina’s Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings conducted by Stephen Drury. The bassoon was played by Luke Olaf Varland, and the strings were four cellos, Drew Comstock, Daniel Lim, Katie Youn, and Daniel Parker, and three contrabasses, Luke Sutherland, Kathryn Schulmeister, and Kate Foss. Again, this is not an “avant garde” piece of our time: Gubaidulina wrote it in 1975 during the Soviet period when she was earning her living as a film composer, but privately building a close circle of performer-friends with whom she could share experiments in improvisation and acoustics. The first publication by Ricordi that year was for bassoon and low string orchestra with four and three desks, respectively, but the version for solo strings has been issued by various publishers since 1979, presumably with her approval.

The bassoon soloist must have amazing abilities to perform in so many different experimental modes over the full range of the instrument, and Varland rose to the occasion brilliantly, having us on the edge of our seats for all of the thirty minutes. The piece is in five movements (unnamed), which have different characters as the composer explores blue notes, multiphonics, what seems like flutter-tonguing, and even jazz, against a background of strings also exploring various extended ranges and techniques, but with more gentle sounds and extended phrases. The bassoonist “sits out” during the middle movement, while the strings develop their interplay to the fullest.

Gubaidulina has written: “Dmitri Shostakovich and Anton Webern had the greatest influence on my work. Although their influence appears to have left no traces in my music, these two composers taught me the most important lesson of all: to be myself.”  And for that we are grateful.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

Thomas Adès (Stu Rosner photo)

The Boston Symphony Orchestra presented a more integrated, yet diverse, program than usual on Friday, March 25. The program consisted of three compositions, by Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, and Thomas Adès, based on William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and a violin concerto by Adès (pronounced “A-dis”). Drawing them all together was Adès as the guest composer-conductor.

He turned forty earlier this month. To have accomplished so much so young, as composer, conductor, and pianist, is phenomenal in our time (pace Mozart). Six festivals or organizations have already focused on his music, and he is the youngest composer to have been given the prestigious Grawemeyer Award (in 2000, for his large orchestral work, Asyla, performed by the BSO under the direction of Christoph von Dohnanyi in 2002). The list of orchestras he has conducted is long, as is the number of his recordings as a pianist. March 14th saw the first of five different concerts, “Aspects of Adès,” for which he is the conductor and pianist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with whom he has had a special curatorial relationship during the last four years. (He has homes in both Hollywood and London.)

So how did he fare with the BSO? Very well: they were with him all the way, which doesn’t always happen with a guest conductor. They played absolutely on his beats, responding instantly to his broad but explicit gestures. In the opening Tchaikovsky he called for a vigorous but controlled accelerando (not in the score), and they gave it to him on target, with increasing excitement. Elsewhere the required rumbles in the low strings and brasses were distinct, and Adès’s  ingenious instrumental pairings were in tune and resonant. The orchestra’s famed clarity shone intact. Before the second work began, he turned to the audience, saying he would be brief, but that he wanted to say what an honor it was to be here, and to conduct this amazing orchestra. (Loud and brief applause before he said a few more words about his Violin Concerto.) There is no question how excelling as composer, conductor, and pianist informs his creativity in all three domains.

Tchaikovsky’s symphonic fantasy, The Tempest, op. 18, was written and first performed in 1873, and has been said by John Wiley in “New Grove II” to be a “collage of sound pictures,” à propos of the plot. The string sections were huge, including six contrabasses, no doubt to underline the long, threatening storm scene at the beginning and recapitulated at the end, while all the other strings played running triplet chords on three strings simultaneously. The general effect was a bit muddy, but seems to be the fault of the composition rather than the performance.

Adès’s violin concerto, Concentric Paths, op. 23, written in 2003, was performed by the soloist, Anthony Marwood, for whom it was written and by whom it was premièred in 2005 in Berlin. He also was the soloist during the American première with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2006. He is a lithe and highly expert violinist, playing a 1736 instrument by Carlo Bergonzi, and teaches nearby during the summer at the Yellow Barn Festival in Vermont. The score calls for a large orchestra, including a variety of percussion instruments. There were far fewer strings than the Tchaikovsky, with only three contrabasses. The title Concentric Paths is intended to suggest recurring cycles, or what has become known as “spiral form”; that is, a musical idea spins out, returning to its starting place, then spins out again with variants, returning enriched to the same starting place, and so on. The first movement, “Rings,” is highlighted by shimmering violins, and marked by a downward, and then upward harmonic movement, sharply punctuated at the end. The longest second movement, “Paths,” comprises a fascinating series of pairings, first of the solo violin with trumpets, then with low brass, then with mid-range winds, then with percussion, and finally with low strings, as if returning home to family. The third and final movement, “Rounds,” is indeed a kind of rondo with various instruments paired with the solo violin which soars above them, seemingly not paying attention. The piece ends on a merciful (fortissimo) unison in F. Marwood’s performance, and the BSO’s, was spectacular, with clearly demarcated sounds at the command of the conductor-composer.

After intermission came two works representing Sibelius’s foray into The Tempest. He wrote incidental music for the play in 1925, after many delays first performed as part of a theatrical production of Shakespeare’s play at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen in 1929. In 1927, as the next to last of his compositional oeuvre, he created a separate arrangement of this music for orchestra (op. 109), that included the Prelude and two suites. We heard the Prelude and the first Suite, the latter comprising ten brief movements: “The Oak Tree,” representing the personification of Ariel, with flute, strings, and harp predominating in a gentle “oom-pah” sound (who knew this of Sibelius!); “Humoresque” (just that); “Caliban’s Song”; “The [joyful] Harvesters”; “Canon”; “Scena”; “Intrada—Berceuse”; “Entr’acte” (like film music, suggesting ominously what is to come); “Ariel’s Song”; and “The Storm,” which, like the Prelude, was properly roiling. All this was a side of Sibelius we didn’t know, and Adès clearly relished it.

The concert concluded with Adès’s own selections from The Tempest, his first full-scale opera written in 2003 commissioned by the Royal Opera House of London to a libretto by Meredith Oakes after Shakespeare’s play. (Adès wanted a rhyming but simpler version of the story.) The following year he made a selection of four scenes, lasting about twenty-five minutes, first performed under his direction by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 2005. The role of Ferdinand was originated in London by tenor Toby Spence, who performed it in Los Angeles and here. He has a lovely, rich, full (but not imperious) true voice with perfect diction, a real delight. British soprano Kate Royal, sensitively and with clear articulation performing the role of Miranda here, had also originated that role in London. British baritone Christopher Mailman, who sang Prospero here with equally fine voice and diction, also had originated the role of Sebastian in the London première. The incredibly difficult role of Ariel was sung here by the Israeli coloratura soprano Hila Plitmann mostly known for her film music (sound track of The Da Vinci Code), but who has sung under Adès with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Adès calls for an extremely high tessitura — seventeen high Es in her first scene! — much of it in wordless melismas, or what frankly sounds like screaming, a thankless form of vocal writing, apparently intended by Adès to represent otherworldliness. The highlight was the duet between Miranda (Royal) and Ferdinand (Spence) in the final scene, ending in the striking pitch class (set of pitches an octave apart) unison with the words, “My lover smiling / Blessed asylum / Beautiful island / All I desire.”

For this performance, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus members were offered complimentary tickets as BSO guests in recognition of their hours of service to the Orchestra. Although there were still some empty seats in the audience, the concert, such a fine example of Adès’s musical persona, was warmly received.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

I mention this first, because listening to one of these (I heard the March 17 performance), especially after not having heard this long set for a while, is nourishing for the soul. Indeed, the first edition (one of the few published while Bach was still alive) notes (in German) that they were “composed for connoisseurs, for the refreshment of their spirits.” Although nothing was said at this performance, I later learned that Sykes’s father had passed away last Sunday, and thus these concerts had been temporarily in doubt. Praise to Sykes for going forward with them, and every good wish for the refreshment of his spirits, too.

These are the only variations Bach ever wrote, because, according to his early biographer, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Bach felt that doing so was boring, due to the required repetition of harmonic structure. But when asked for some of these by a sleepless wealthy Count who wanted music of “such a smooth and somewhat lively character that he might be a little cheered by them” (Forkel again), Bach complied — and was well rewarded. When the Count visited Leipzig, he often brought Johann Gottlieb Goldberg with him for music lessons with Bach. It was Goldberg who was required to play the variations for the Count, so his name informally stuck with them.

Sykes is performing on a harpsichord made by Allan Winkler of Medford. It is fashioned after a 1716 instrument made in Hamburg by Carl Conrad Fleischer (only two of his instruments survive). For this iteration, Winkler, who has produced several of these instruments, added a second manual (specifically required by Bach for these variations), and provided the options of playing in Baroque or modern pitches without retuning. So, of the many instruments owned by Sykes, he chose this one for the Goldbergs.

Winkler was present, but had no need to tune during intermission; rather he graciously answered many questions posed in quiet conversations with audience members in this intimate setting. Edward Kottick wrote in his Harpsichord Owner’s Guide, published in 1987, that Fleischer’s original instrument sounds “convincingly northern, something akin to a French harpsichord,” but with a “southern accent,” speaking more cleanly, with more hardness, clarity, and brilliance. The same can be said of Winkler’s splendid version, although as he modestly says, the beauty is all in Sykes’s playing.

How true! The opening aria was slow and pensive, with much rubato that, contrary to what we have all been told about consistent tempo in Bach’s music, was absolutely appropriate: Sykes thus leads us carefully into the incredible inventiveness we are about to hear, making sure that the harmonic structure does indeed get implanted in our memory. He plays the Aria (at the beginning and the end, as Bach wrote) and all thirty Variations with all the repeats. In the repeated sections he makes no effort to vary the frequent ornamentation already indicated in the first edition. Although adding ornamentation is in the tradition of Baroque performance, it would be overkill here and muddy Bach’s intention, as Sykes tastefully recognizes. Because not many composers of the time indicated any ornamentation at all, it makes sense to honor Bach’s specific wishes cleanly.

Furthermore, Sykes is careful to distinguish the first and second endings. Obviously one must make a clear cadence at the end of each variation (with the second ending of the second section), but Sykes carefully crafts distinctive endings for the first section as well, often picking up speed and gracefully  impelling his playing into the repeat, while stating the second cadence straightforwardly, a clue that the second section is about to begin. The variety of his keyboard touches is amazing. The harpsichord is a plucked instrument, and it doesn’t “do” dynamics, but it can sustain pitches, much like a piano, if the key is held so that the damper does not drop. Bach wrote many long, sustained notes, and presumably intended them to be heard, which Sykes manages beautifully. His fast tempi are incredibly fast, but never breathless or muddled. Some movements that emphasize contrapuntal writing in three parts, beginning and ending at different times, demand close attention from the performer to be sure all voices are heard individually, and Sykes never fails.

If Bach thought variations were boring, Sykes clearly does not, although to be sure Bach also went a long way to create enough variety in tempo and texture to hold his interest and ours as well. Sykes is clearly aware of this hidden ebullience, or secret sense of fun, and underlines it. This performance earned Sykes a well-deserved standing ovation. Catch it if you can.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

Then as now, the chorus was comprised of capable musical amateurs (with emphasis on the root of that word), although the numbers have been reduced from whatever it took to occupy the ample full stage of Boston’s Music Hall in 1874, to fifty-two in 2011. This number is nevertheless still slightly larger than the size of performing forces consistent with what scholars have determined is Handel’s general practice (chorus and instruments combined, about sixty).

On Saturday Boston Cecilia’s Period Instrument Orchestra included exactly the types of wind instruments Handel calls for (two each of traversi, oboes, bassoons, natural horns, trumpets) plus strings (in this case 6-6-4-3-1), and continuo (organ with chorus, harpsichord with soloists), or a total of thirty-one. (Actually there were thirty-two, with the addition of timpani, sparingly used with the chorus in Acts I and III, that Handel did not specify in his score). This is a larger number of strings than would have been heard in Handel’s time but was required by Cecilia’s larger chorus. All the violins played during each of the arias, but usually very softly and adeptly, with incredible grace, on many occasions almost as one gentle sound. Handel used his instrumentation to assist in characterizing the changing roles of the soloists as the oratorio developed. The violas mostly sat out during the arias, although Handel calls for a viola with arias by only the male characters in the first act, and later, as the libretto and music become more agitated, with all the arias. According to the score, the traversi accompany only two of the arias, by women’s voices, while the oboes (doubling the violins), play in only one, with the countertenor, Hamor. The bassoons double the contrabass in the choruses. The horns play with only one chorus in the first act, and the trumpets with the first and last chorus. So the instrumental sound was chiefly violins and continuo, with winds (and timpani) for accent and dramatic effect. The concert-master was Daniel Stepner.

Originating in a few verses in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Judges about a minor biblical figure (Jephtha), the libretto by Thomas Morell (1703-1759) significantly changes both the characters and the dire outcome to a so-called “happy ending.” The story in Judges involves only Jephtha, the outcast son of a harlot, who, when asked by the Elders to lead the Israelites in war against the Ammonites, accepts on the condition that he will remain the Israelites’ leader. He also vows that if victorious, the first person who greets him upon his return will be sacrificed. That turns out to be his (unnamed) daughter. A 16th-century tragedy, Jephte sive votum (1557), by Scottish poet George Buchanan (1506-1582), named the daughter Iphis and added the characters Storgé, Jephtha’s wife, and Zabul, his brother. Morell’s elaboration goes well beyond, adding Hamor, Iphis’s lover, and an angelus ex machina in Act III, who tells Jephtha that his vow can be fulfilled by dedicating his daughter to a “pure and virgin state forever.” There follows much rejoicing. Some critics say Morell’s elaboration is more in keeping with eighteenth-century writings on virginity, filial devotion, and patriotism, and that Handel celebrates these values with his light-hearted dance forms, not only in the instrumental interludes, but also in some of the arias — Iphis’s first aria in Act II, scene 3 (“Welcome as the cheerful light”) is marked, A tempo di gavotta in the score, which only heightens the horror as she welcomes her father back from the war.

Teeters’s conducting was by turns vigorous and sometimes seemingly hunched over, caressing this music he knows so well, which was performed with all the notated repeats. The pontificating choruses are long and sometimes overbalanced the orchestra. The opening and closing choruses are marked Allegro, but the others all Grave, or Adagio, with only one Alla breve (relatively quick). Most were homophonic, but some were energetically fugal, with exposed entrances by section, which the chorus members managed well.

The role of Jephtha was magnificently filled by tenor Aaron Sheehan. His clear, nearly vibrato-less voice has enough richness to carry well over the accompanying textures, and he himself has enough dramatic flair to project the role’s needed pride, angst, remorse, and joy by turns. His second-act recitative and aria, “Zabul, thy deeds were valiant, . .  His mighty arm, with sudden blow,” earned spontaneous applause from the otherwise “correct” audience. Baritone Ron Williams has a much deeper, more resonant voice, which worked well for the role of  Zabul, who functions as a more frequent, agile commentator than does the chorus. Boy soprano Ryan Williams (the Angel), nearly brought the house down with the sheer simplicity of his clear voice telling the news of Iphis’s reprieve. The other soloists, all of whom have fine voices, may have been miscast. Mezzo-soprano Deborah Rentz-Moore (Storgé) has a warm, clear, voice that seems perfect for this music, except that she seemed lacking, especially toward the end, in the kind of vocal energy necessary to impress the poignancy of her laments and her subsequent relief. Soprano Teresa Wakim (Iphis), on the other hand, has a large voice with ringing vibrato; although she demonstrated she is capable of dramatically reduced hushed tones, in general she overwhelmed the piece. (Both of these singers are active in early music performances, and I look forward to hearing them elsewhere.) Handel created the role of Hamor, a soldier in love with Iphis, as a contralto, whereas counter-tenor Martin Near’s Fach more nearly approaches that of a piercing lyric soprano. For the most part his voice was jarring in this context, with one amazing exception: his duet with Teresa Wakim in the first act—that’s “a keeper”!

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

Sibelius’s Valse triste is scored for flute, clarinet (in A), 2 horns, timpani (in D), and strings. He wrote it originally in 1903 as incidental music for his brother-in-law’s play, Kuoloma (Death), to depict a dream in which Death appears to a sleeping woman as a dance partner. The piece was revised and separately published in 1904 as op. 44, no. 1. Since then it has become a staple of the orchestral repertoire, with its familiar, haunting theme that makes poignant use of the descending half-step, usually to a note outside the scale of the G-major key. Indeed, the contrabasses begin by persistently reiterating a  G-sharp, which turns out to be the third of a chord in E major. The work ends resolutely in g minor, signifying the victim’s death. Pellicano has had a lot of experience leading student orchestras, particularly at Yale University, and conveys and gets what he wants from them with precision and enthusiasm. He created deliberate tentativeness in the opening and brief moments of near silence between the various sections of the waltz, thus heightening the dramatic effect of impending doom in the midst of seeming lush gaiety. The performance was stunningly expressive.

For John Adams’s The Wound Dresser (1988), first performed in February 1989 by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, with baritone Sanford Sylvan, and the composer conducting, the winds grew into two flutes, two oboes, clarinet, bass clarinet, two bassoons, two horns, and trumpet — plus the same timpani and strings, with the sonically notable addition of a synthesizer — specifically, according to Adams’s publisher’s Website, the Kurzweil K2000, which came on the market in 1991. Adams is quite specific in his directions that the synthesizer “should not be amplified through [the] main loudspeaker system. The sampler sound is to be amplified through the recommended keyboard combination amplifier and should seem acoustic within the context of the orchestra — this is important.” I also learned from one of the orchestra members afterwards that Longy had a difficult time locating this particular synthesizer, now superseded by later models.

Orchestral concerts, particularly ones of this size, are rarely given at the First Church in Cambridge. Given its legendary reverberation, far more care should have been taken to balance the orchestral and synthesizer sounds, which became loud and muddy, with each other and with baritone Tom Meglioranza’s clear voice and perfect diction, much of which was nearly inaudible (from a perfect seat in the center of the front row in the balcony). Adams set most of Walt Whitman’s grim poem (from Leaves of Grass,  1891), which, beginning with the second half of the second verse, reflects on the poet’s experiences as a nurse during the Civil War. Adams’s setting has been described as a “musical depiction of graphic violence co-existing with disembodied spiritual transcendence.” Meglioranza sang with the quiet but raw intense passion and tenderness of this transcendence, while the orchestra wound along in undulant phrases with ominous roiling dissonance to echo the graphic violence. Except for the balance issue, Pellicano’s conducting was also impassioned, and confident. The students played with enthusiasm and gave both Meglioranza and Pellicano foot-stomping approval at the end.

Sibelius’s Second Symphony also suffered from the reverberations of this space. It is a long work, about forty-five minutes, for a still larger orchestra: two each, flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons; four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, and tuba; plus timpani and strings. Full disclosure: my appreciation of this work is based on a magical performance by a young, pre-conservatory, student orchestra, in a nearly underground church in Helsinki in 1993 that was simply shimmering. In Cambridge, 2011, the excellent program notes by Longy’s Erik Entwistle, delineated all we should hear in all four movements, but that was not always easy. In spite of the dynamic markings in the score, there was not enough dynamic gradation or contrast except in a very few places. Mostly the four movements were just loud. Once again, this was surely a problem with the space rather than the conducting, although the phenomenon should have been anticipated. There were a few intonation problems, for example the final chord at the end of the second movement, in the flutes. Even so, the students really leaned into it with bodily enthusiasm, and this time their foot-stomping at the end was echoed by the audience — until they stood in ovation.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

Literally hundreds of composers, especially in the last twenty-five years, have written for this combination of six instruments. The sonic possibilities are rich: pitting the strings against the winds, the high strings and winds together against the low, the amazing combinations of piano plus vibes (or marimba or chimes), &c.—the sonic possibilities seem endless with these deceptively simple means.

A Neo-Platonic Epistrophe While Crossing Times Square (1980), by the Korean-born Donald Sur, excluded flute and percussion, however; it was written for violin, cello, clarinet, and piano. Commissioned by Boston University’s Alea III, it was dedicated to his teacher and colleague, the late Earl Kim. This relatively short piece is reminiscent of the simple but slightly ominous German cabaret music of Kurt Weil, and it just as simply stops. Sur wrote, “Ad infinitum” over the last measure of the score, which contains no notation. (A recording of the works of Sur (including this piece), performed by Collage has just been released by Albany Records.)

The full sextet was in play for the first performance of Three Perambulations (2010), by James Ricci. The composer describes the first, “Immagine speculare” (Mirror image), as a “brisk walk through a house of mirrors at the Carnival.” It is full of cross rhythms against a constant tactus and calls for the bass clarinet throughout. Virtuosic piano writing was accomplished by Berman without ceremony, but to perfection, as was his performance throughout the evening. The second movement, “Passeggiata” (Walk) plays off the strings and winds (clarinet this time) against the piano and vibes, leading up to a loud climax, and then suddenly to a hushed final phrase. The “Passacaglia” is of course a Baroque form made up  of variations over a ground bass. Here Ricci used the structure for his own purposes, presenting the “theme” as a chordal piano solo with the “bass” melody ringing out in the soprano, and building from there. Skillfully performed, there was nevertheless an overall feeling of angst.

For his Rilke Songs (2008), Peter Child chose seven poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, edited and lyrically translated by Edward Snow in a bilingual edition (North Point Press) of 1997. All of them concerned “blooming,” (in German, “blühen”), creating not only a unity of imagery, but also an opportunity for the Irish mezzo-soprano Paula Murrihy to project her fat (intended as a compliment) but focused, warmly dramatic voice. Indeed, the very fatness meant that she could “cover” (i.e., never be in conflict with) any instrumental pitch with which a unison was prescribed, greatly adding to the warmth of the ensemble as a whole. Each song began with a brief instrumental introduction, in the Lieder tradition. The final (tonal) song, “Wilder Rosenbusch” (Wild rosebush), for mezzo-soprano and piano only, strongly reinforced this tradition, leaving the impression that Child had somehow morphed into Schubert for the moment. More warmth was introduced by the duos for cello and clarinet, while cascading simultaneous ripples from piano and vibes, with pedals depressed, were absolutely thrilling.

The first of Fred Lerdahl’s two pieces, for cello alone, There and Back Again (after Columbi’s ‘Chiacona’), was one of several written in 2010 for the 50th birthday of Finnish cellist Anssi Kartunen, with the requirement that all the composers base their surprise gift on this particular four-bar theme by Giuseppe Colombi (1635-1694). In a sense it is a festive, insider’s musical joke — as Lerdahl wrote, “a journey through three and a half centuries and back” — all in four minutes. Joel Moerschel played it with a wicked straight face.

Lerdahl’s Time after Time (2000) is in two much longer movements (unnamed), and was commissioned by both Collage and the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society in New York. Both movements were composed in accordance with what Lehrdahl describes as his own formal creation, a spiral, “in which a simple, stable musical idea proliferates, becoming longer and more complex with each cycle” — thus a transformative process, difficult to comprehend on first hearing. The first movement runs fiercely up and down at fortissimo, a flurry of activity. The second is quieter, and develops over a constant tick-tock tactus established in the piano, ending in a rich, soft coda with a lovely cadence. Once again the performance was breathtaking in the hands of these particular players. There were moments of sounding square, however, perhaps deriving from Hoose’s propensity to beat time forcefully.

The final work, The Seven Ages (2009), by John Harbison, is a song cycle that takes its title from the first poem in Louise Glück’s ninth book of poetry published under the same title by Ecco Press in 2001. It is also the title of the first in Harbison’s set, followed by “The Balcony,” “Decade,” “Aubade,” “Summer Night,” and “Fable.” Here again Murrihy spun her magical web around these dour texts of lost desire and passion, yet with rich, vivid imagery that yielded to Murrihy’s rich voice, her fine diction and her own dramatic passion. Harbison of course was more than partly responsible, with eloquent musical lines drawn out, a refined ear for instrumental color, and, according to his notes, total immersion in the poetry while composing. There was no beating the way to the door after this emotional bath. It took a while to get the coat on.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

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Christian Tetzlaff, Marcelo Lehinger and Sir Harrison Birtwistle (Michael Lutch photo)

By any measure, the March 3 Boston Symphony Orchestra concert was a miracle. The announcement of James Levine’s withdrawal from conducting all programs for the rest of the season came on Tuesday, March 1, and by March 3 his appointee, Brazilian Assistant Conductor Marcelo Lehninger was at the ready in good spirits. Fortunately, the German violinist Christian Tetzlaff did not withdraw, because he was soloist in all three works on the program, which, contrary to next week, remained as planned: Mozart’s Rondo in C major, K. 373, Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s new Violin Concerto, the BSO’s only commission this year, and Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2.

Tetzlaff, who will be forty-five in April, was born in Hamburg, made his debut as a violinist at the age of fourteen, and after the Musikhochschule in Lübeck, came to Cincinnati, Levine’s home town, to study with the German violinist and Levine’s close friend, Walter Levin. Thereafter he became an extraordinarily active soloist throughout the world. He has performed with the BSO ten times since 1990, thrice under Levine since 2006, so he is well-known to Boston audiences—this one seemed delighted to welcome him back, with several well-deserved standing ovations. Just for the record, since 2002 he has been playing a violin by the German violin maker, Peter Greiner, modeled on a Guarneri del Gesú, in preference to his earlier Stradivarius. He and his sister formed the Tetzlaff Quartet (touring the U.S. in April), all but one of whom play Greiner instruments.

Somewhat less than miraculous was the opening tasty appetizer, Mozart’s Rondo, scored for violin and small orchestra (two oboes, two horns, and strings). Summoned to Vienna, by his employer, the Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg, Mozart finished the work in April, 1781 and it was performed within the week at the residence of Prince Rudolf, the Archbishop’s father. Mozart was also performing his new Sonata for Violin and Piano in G major, K. 373a, there that night when he would rather have been playing for the Emperor at a different residence. Furious at being treated like a servant, Mozart broke with the Archbishop in June and remained as a free-lancer in Vienna until his death in 1791. This is a charming piece, full of courtly gaiety, but Tetzlaff and Lehninger seemed to have had a different idea of the tempo — Tetzlaff’s spirited, and Leninger’s stately, which they never quite resolved. Otherwise the performance was radiant as only the BSO strings can project. (Tetzlaff has performed this once before with the BSO at Tanglewood in 2005 under David Robertson, but these are the only appearances of this work in the BSO’s repertoire.)

The performance of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s new Violin Concerto more than made up for the earlier disjunction. His music has been rarely performed by this orchestra, starting with a non-performance of his Tragoedia scheduled for December 4, 1970, but cancelled by Michael Tilson Thomas as “not yet ready to go as well as he thought it should,” Michael Steinberg reported. Only his Shadow of the Night (2001) has been performed here under Christoph von Dohnányi in 2005, while he was in residence at Harvard University. He has written only two other works for solo instrument and orchestra: Antiphonies (piano, 1992), and The Cry of Anubis (tuba, 1994). The simply titled Concerto  begins with an intense, triple fortissimo solo violin flourish of intervals going up to a high D, held for a while against a tri-tone-producing A-flat below, which eventually falls down to B-flat below middle C, before starting to scratch away at some lower notes. But meanwhile a flute soloist has embarked on a similar flourish at pianissimo<forte>pianissimo, while strings played very soft, sustained notes, thus producing the ethereal colors that one way or another obtained throughout. There were in fact five pylons that established new beginnings: five duets between the solo violin and solo flute, piccolo, cello, oboe, and bassoon, accompanied by a softly twittering chorus of instruments. The solo cello, performed by Martha Babcock, was particularly affecting. The three percussionists, playing a large battery of fifteen instruments, and low brass, especially the tuba, also took their turns in providing solo texture, while Tetzlaff played almost constantly in a very difficult role, absolutely dancing with the notes that were formed in gestures rather than phrases throughout. This was a brilliant essay in orchestral color, brilliantly performed. At the end both Tetzlaff and the orchestra members seemed to be congratulating each other, and  Birtwistle appeared to be equally pleased on stage.

Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2 was written in Budapest for the violinist Zoltán Székely between August, 1937 and December, 1938 while the composer was increasingly worried about the changing political situation in Germany and Austria. Already he was negotiating with Boosey & Hawkes (London) to become his publisher instead of Universal Edition (Vienna), and refusing to perform as a pianist in Germany.  The first movement of Bartók’s Violin Concerto, Allegro non troppo, is nonetheless spirited and animated—altogether bright and shining—and alternates fast and slow passages. The harp is a prominent sound in various moods throughout, and Jessica Zhou rose to the occasion with sensitivity to each one. Tetzlaff’s cadenza was performed with pure fire. The second movement (Andante tranquillo) is a set of variations in which the soloist plays with various groups of instruments in turn, and the third (Allegro molto) runs by in a rollicking three-quarter time. There is a twelve-note “row” theme found in the outer movements, which, though never numbered, was reported by Yehudi Menuhin to be Bartók’s proof to Schoenberg that a composer can use this scheme and yet retain tonality. This work, like others of this period, is also less influenced by his researches into Hungarian folk idioms. Lehninger’s conducting, which before had comprised chiefly outlining time patterns during the first two pieces, finally emerged into a looser style in which his body was fully engaged.

The juxtaposition of the Birtwistle and the Bartók was amazingly salutary, in spite of the years separating their composition. The dissonances set forth in the Birtwistle were somehow both enhanced and resolved in the Bartók. Tetzlaff’s performance throughout, especially given the circumstances, was the truly miraculous element in this concert, not soon to be forgotten by either the orchestra members, who were finally all smiles, and the audience.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

This orchestra is huge — 110 players, almost as large as the Boston Symphony Orchestra —distributed as twenty-eight violins, ten violas, fifteen cellos, seven double basses, four flutes, four oboes, four clarinets, five bassoons, eight horns, six trumpets, five trombones, two bass trombones, one tuba, one piano/celeste, two harps, three timpani players, and five percussion players. As far as I could tell, there were no changes in personnel for any of the three works performed, except possibly for the tuba, required only in Schuller’s piece

Thus the orchestra was far too heavy for the Prelude to Haydn’s oratorio, The Creation. Yet Schuller, leading gently, beginning and ending phrases with a flick of his quietly moving, expressive fingers, was able to achieve within them some of the most beautiful pianissimo sounds of the concert. Yes, he kept time with his baton as necessary, although he often held it in one hand as if to get it out of the way; but he was also able to convey the long, broad phrases common to all three of the evening’s works. Haydn’s Prelude, actually entitled, “Vorstellung des Chaos” (Conception from Chaos), in C minor, marked Largo, is ethereal, with rising arpeggios that never fall from the atmosphere, sometimes shaken by surprising fortes. In Schuller’s hands it was full of solemn wonder

Gunther Schuller was president of the New England Conservatory from 1967 to 1977, and the legendary tuba soloist Harvey Phillips was his vice president for Financial Affairs from 1967 to 1971. In 1960 Schuller had written a concerto for Phillips, Capriccio for Tuba and Chamber Orchestra. In 2007, having fallen on ill health, Phillips asked for another, this time with a commission for tuba and full orchestra, although he knew he would not be able to perform it. In fact, he was unable to hear it, because he died last October 20th, and this was the Concerto’s world première. I’m sorry to say, I never heard Phillips perform in person, during my years at Indiana University (where Phillips taught from 1971 to 1994), but I gained a new appreciation for the lyrical capabilities of the tuba, almost like the clarinet, through recordings, and through performances by his students. Given these associations, I was expecting some of that lyricism in Schuller’s Concerto No. 2 for Tuba and Orchestra, written in 2008, but this was a very different work. Schuller’s own program notes, too long to convey here, give a vivid description of the four-movement piece, but I may quote his summary:

The piece starts with a dark harmony in the five solo string basses, answered by the solo tuba and a little later by the contrabass clarinet. At other times throughout the piece, the contrabassoon and bass clarinet make prominent contributions. In the last movement there is a Cadenza which briefly features a two-tuba duet. But by sonoric contrast with the darker sounds the Concerto also presents many shimmering high-register sounds in the violins, and eventually the whole rich and varied coloristic palette of the modern orchestra.

The movements are ruminations, ending on question marks, and are engaging. There are various times that instruments are exposed, for example the harps, or the horn quartet, or other individual instruments; all are welcome and rise sweetly from the dense texture. The soloist was Mike W. Roylance, principal tuba for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who performed his difficult virtuosic role with aplomb. Schuller’s program note for the third movement noted that this would be the opportunity for “the most lyric, singing, gently expressive vein,” but this was not the sound I heard, with the exception of that brief two-tuba duet, in which Roylance was joined by BU student Dwayne Heard. Throughout the performance, the students were engaged, attentive, responsive, and made beautiful music under Schuller’s baton.

After intermission the program ended with a performance of Brahms’ Symphony No. 4, op. 98, in e minor. This is the real repertoire piece, and the students were obviously relishing it. The first movement, Allegro non troppo, opened badly, however, with some out-of-tune brasses, but the students rallied, and the second movement, Andante moderato, was absolutely beautiful, especially the soft opening. The third movement, Allegro giocoso was even better — not so muddled with heaviness, and with the final Allegro energico e passionato, the students were able to generate real excitement. Backstage after the concert, Schuller was rightly elated, and appropriately exhausted, for his eighty-five years.

The next performance of the BU Symphony Orchestra will be conducted by Visiting Associate Professor of Orchestral Conducting John Page, on March 10. The final concert, Mendelssohn’s Elijah at Symphony Hall, will be conducted by BU Professor and Director of Choral Activities Ann Howard Jones.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

Guest artist Yukiko Shimazaki, a young free-lance pianist, played a major role in the concert as the accompanist for all three of the works before intermission, and she and Cambridge Rindge and Latin School student Julian Drummond shared the piano in the last work on the program, by Peter Van Zandt Lane. An enthusiastic and sympathetic performer of new and difficult music, Shimazaki is note-perfect and sensitive to the collaborative effort, but perhaps because the piano lid was slightly raised, her accompaniments were generally too loud and over-pedaled, except in Lane’s larger ensemble.

The pieces by the two youngest composers, both born in 1989, came first. Elizabeth Ogonek’s Three Scarlet Moods (2006) for clarinet (Diane Heffner) and piano comprised three mellow movements with very little dissonance. “Shades of Red,” with its slow tactus, in which the clarinet continually alternated high and low pitches — with which Heffner was spot on — was sonorous, the piano accompanying the clarinet with little other interaction. The “Tango” was also slow, mostly in tango rhythm, with nice noodles from Heffner and a solo cadenza. “Redlight” suggested traffic, vignettes of stop and go. The next composition, Stephen Feigenbaum’s Tread (2009), for viola (Ann Black) and piano, a Boston première, played with repeated notes that were buried in different harmonies and jagged rhythms, yet sweetly resolving dissonances, ending in an open cadence on the fifth.  Black’s performance was, as always, superb.

Michael Djupstrom’s Walimai (2005) for clarinet and piano, also a Boston première, was inspired by a short story of that title by Isabel Allende in her collection, Cuentos de Eva Luna (published in Barcelona in 1989), about a tribesman living deep in the rainforest. It is atmospheric — beginning very softly and nebulously, rising to raging dissonances, softening at the end — and extremely difficult to perform. Heffner tapped her foot to the slow tactus and exhibited amazing dexterity and breath control, especially for the tough requirements at the end.

The second half of the program opened with another Boston première, by the oldest composer of the evening, Du Yun, who was born in 1977. She is a member of the Composition faculty at SUNY Purchase. Her morsel.eroding (2003) is a musical Haiku for bass and E-flat clarinets and tam-tam. (Geezers of a certain age refer to this instrument as “the J. Arthur Rank.”) Katherine V. Matasey and Robert Schulz were the amazing performers, seemingly effortlessly shifting among the special techniques required. In particular, Matasey’s facile sliding, not only into variable pitches but into multiple octaves, was remarkable. Schulz was not required to strike the tam-tam but rather to play on it with various brushes and wires, with which he was able to make lovely phrases. Like a haiku, the piece appeared in relatively short sections that just were — they didn’t need to “go” anywhere.

Every composer at some point is drawn toward writing music for a solo instrument, either because such a piece is requested by a colleague or a student or because the task presents a particular challenge or set of problems that the composer wants to solve. Clint Needham’s Viola Music (2004), also a Boston première, was performed with grace and confidence by Anne Black. There are three movements: “Perpetual Motion & [long] Cadenza”;  “Song,” which doesn’t sound very much like one with its wide intervals and some long silences; and “Scherzo,” full of rhythmic drive, lots of double-stops burbling like a waterfall one after the other, and a rather frantic ending.

As the last work, the program featured a world première of a work for the ensemble’s core musicians, flutist Hershman-Tcherepnin, clarinetist Matasy, percussionist Schulz, violist Black, cellist Michael Curry, and Yu-Hui Chang, Co-Artistic Director, and conductor, together with young guest performers flutist Phoebe Reuben, clarinetist Katie Armstrong, and pianists Julian Drummond and Shimazaki. Entitled Beacons, it was commissioned from composer Peter Van Zandt Lane, a doctoral student at Brandeis University who is also Dino’s general manager and a BMInt reviewer. Lane wrote in the program notes that he was fascinated with the idea of students and professionals performing side by side, and hence the instrumentation; only the percussionist and cellist have no partners. The work is divided into three movements, “Daybeacon,” “Relays,” and “Lights,” each with a different character and all having something to do with light on water — one had the sense of being in the presence of color-pictures. All three movements, Lane wrote, were “saturated with imitation,” perhaps in the tradition of Haydn’s piano duet, Il maestro e lo scolare (“the master and the student”), but certainly not as clearly enunciated. According to Lane, the students start out imitating the professionals, but the professionals end up imitating the students. In any case, Chang’s conducting gestures were clear and vigorous, which the ensemble had no trouble following. Lane has a good ear not only for instrumentation, but also for spacing that I have noticed before. This was particularly evident in the slower, more consonant third movement that simply sang as it glittered in the light.

A word about the composers’ notes on their music. All music is created as a response to something — a beautiful sunrise, a poem — the possibilities are endless. But when composers are asked much later to write notes about these pieces, they are often baffled, because they may or may not remember the original impulse, or may have moved off in another direction. Usually they are asked for notes that will help the audience “understand” the music. I try very hard not to read them before a concert, because I want to have the fresh experience of responding only to the music itself. I don’t want to be impelled to judge whether or not the composers met their own expectations, assigned after the fact. That said, I found this particular set of notes fascinating because they revealed such a wide range of germinating ideas. May these young composers go far with them.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

They presented a concert of “Hidden Treasures from the German Baroque” on January 28 and 29, at the First Parish in Wayland and the Old South Church in Boston, respectively. This review is of the former. The “treasures” may be hidden — that is, they were written by relatively obscure composers, Johann Gottlieb Janitsch, Christoph Graupner, Johann Friedrich Fasch, Johann David Heinichen, and Johann Adolf Hasse, all working as Kapellmeister in early 18th-century German courts — but these particular pieces are certainly worth “finding.”

Members of the core group — co-Artistic Directors Daniel Ryan (cello) and Suzanne Stumpf (traverso flute), Sarah Darling (violin and viola), and Michael Bahmann (harpsichord)—were joined by Marilyn Boenau (bassoon), and Owen Watkins (soprano and bass chalumeaux). The term chalumeau originally referred to the chanter of a bagpipe, but in the late 17th century evolved to become a transitional instrument between the recorder and the clarinet. Like the recorder, it comes in different sizes (soprano, alto, tenor, bass), and retains its characteristic foot joint. Like the clarinet, it is a reed instrument, and sounds more mellifluous than the oboe. In addition to performing widely on all these instruments, Owen Watkins makes then in Friedrich von Huene’s Workshop in Brookline.

All the works chosen were in sonata-form, far enough away from the dance suites from which they originated to reveal some lingering moments and delightful surprises yet close enough to have retained their charm. The first movement of Janitsch’s Quartet in C Major for traverso, viola, cello, and continuo is a lilting Larghetto alla siciliano, and the musicians had plenty of chances to provide affekt in this bottom-weighted piece, the cello serving as both a solo and continuo instrument. Graupner’s Trio Sonata in C Major for bass chalumeau, bassoon, and continuo, was even heavier on the bottom, especially the bassoon, which was bright and a bit overpowering throughout, skilled as Ms. Boenau clearly is. The bassoon contrasted well, however, with the mellower chalumeau, of which Watkins is clearly a master, especially in the second, Allegro movement full of contrapuntal lines. Fasch’s Sonata in D Major for traverso, violin, bassoon, and continuo is a typical slow-fast-slow-fast construction, memorable for the beautifully matched lyricism of Stumpf and Darling.

Another work by Graupner appeared after intermission: his Trio Sonata in d minor for traverso, viola (originally viola d’amore), and continuo, with the curiously named first movement, Senz’ acceleranza (without speeding up) carefully observed. The Allegro in this piece is marked ma non presto (i.e., fast, but not really fast), and is full of sequential phrases. In general the Allegros in this concert were all about the same comfortable tempo, as were the Vivaces, so acceleration was unlikely anyway. Heinichen’s Concerto in G major for traverso, bassoon, cello, and continuo, is another bottom-heavy piece, in this case almost a reverse trio-sonata; that is, instead of two high and one low instruments, the tessitura is for two low and one high. Here again, Ryan successfully managed the dual roles soloist and continuo player, not an easy feat. Hasse’s Quartet in F Major for soprano chalumeau, violin (originally oboe), bassoon, and continuo contained many hi-low instrument family duets — violin plus cello, or chalumeau plus bassoon — each duo delightfully questioning and answering each other. The piece ends with a long phrase in unison, of all things, which brought a nice chuckle from the audience in the well-filled early-nineteenth-century church.

As a kind of programmed encore, to bring all players together at once, the Musicians performed their own arrangement of the aria “Mein gläubiger Herze, frohlocke sing” (My heart ever faithful, sing praises”) from Cantata No. 68 by Johann Sebastian Bach, originally for soprano, oboe, violin, violoncello piccolo, and continuo. As Ryan explained, the “violoncello piccolo,” or five-string cello with an added e string, was frequently used in Germany until well into the 18th century. At least eight of the cantatas written by Bach between 1724 and 1726 specify such an instrument, although some say this simply meant a higher tuning. The instrumental version is entirely appropriate, given the fact that the piece is based on two dance forms (gavotte and bourée), competing with each other. It made a rollicking end to a fine concert.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

It is hard to know where or how to begin to review this emotionally and intellectually deeply moving set of concerts. I suppose first with the facts. The Cambridge Society for Early Music (CSEM), now in the middle of a “Bach Year,” is this week presenting a complicated series of five concerts — lecture recitals, really — by violinist and musical multimedia artist Nicholas Kitchen, comprising Bach’s complete Sonatas and Partitas (BWV 1001-1006), divided among churches in various locations. Part I includes the first two Sonatas and Partitas (in Carlisle and Salem, Jan. 20 and 22); Part II a performance of the famous Chaconne (from the second d-minor Partita) in the version copied by Johann Peter Kellner in 1726, followed by a performance of the same from Bach’s manuscript (1720), plus the third Sonata and Partita, followed by a question period (in Weston and Ipswich, Jan. 21 and 23). Part III is a single program of all six Sonatas and Partitas at once, in a larger space (Christ Church in Cambridge, Jan. 24), and omitting the special focus on the Chaconne. I heard performances of Part I and II in Carlisle and Weston, but will not be able to hear Part III, contrary to the presenters’ hopes, which is too bad for reasons I hope become clear below. Kitchen has done this at least once before at Park University in the Kansas City area, in February of 2009, where “Part III” was reported by an ecstatic, knowledgeable, anonymous blogger, with a copy of the first page of music of Bach’s manuscript and useful additional links, at Chamber Music Today.

Kitchen introduced everything he played with almost lyrical comments, well pitched, that were obviously the fruit of many long years of learning, analyzing, memorizing, and playing these pieces. Even more difficult, because these were not in fact class lectures, he could not assume that the audience in Part II concerts had heard what he had said in Part I. Thus he created his own artful narrative blend of repetition and new information. His comments were well informed by critical writing both early (Geminiani, Joachim, Brahms) and recent (Martin Jarvis). He urged the audience to hear the Cambridge concert (Part III), where the formal relationships with which he is so fascinated should more easily emerge in the context of all six works. His own extensive notes, written for the occasion, were published only this week on his Website (now linked from CSEM’s). The printed program included a nice essay on the Kellner copy of the Chaconne by musical paleographer and CSEM’s general manager Flynn Warmington, based on an article by Russell Stinson in Early Music (1985).

The two small churches (First Religious Society in Carlisle, built in 1811, and the Weston Congregational Church, built about forty years ago) were well filled with appreciative audiences, of which many did attend both presentations. Architecturally the churches could not have been more diverse, yet curiously they represented Kitchen’s approach to this music — influenced but unbounded by chronological strictures of either authenticity or virtuosity. Both sites were well chosen for these concerts, which indeed required a certain kind of intimacy for both speech and music of the solo violin. Their size also accommodated the clear view by all of Kitchen’s visual projections.

Kitchen, together with his Borromeo Quartet “family,” is well known for playing from a computer laptop, on a special stand, using an attached foot-pedal to turn pages that he held up by its cable like a mouse by its tail for us all to see. (For the curious, the model he uses, and the stand for his laptop is now available inexpensively.) Even more central to the impact of these concerts, Kitchen performs the Sonatas and Partitas from a digital replica of Bach’s own autograph manuscript projected on both his laptop and a large, backlit screen beside which he stood, slightly in its shadow. It was as though he was projecting his own playing through the musical text instead of the reverse.

If there were boundaries to Kitchen’s performance creation, these pages provided what there were. Of course, all performers represent music on a page somewhere, interpreting it as they will. But to perform from a visible manuscript in the composer’s own hand allows the audience to see and hear immediately what decisions Kitchen has made and how closely he conveys the implications of Bach’s unbelievably difficult notation, albeit in such a graceful hand. At one point Kitchen quipped (something like), “If your eyes tire of watching the music, just sit back and enjoy it!”

And enjoy we did. Kitchen doesn’t play a “Baroque violin” or use a “Baroque bow”; he plays a Guarneri del Gesù of 1730 (formerly in the possession of his teacher, Symon Goldberg), donated to the Library of Congress on the condition that he be allowed to play and travel with it. And after all, this instrument was made well before Bach’s death (in 1750), so Bach himself might even have been envious to hear these performances. He might have been jarred, however, by the fact that Kitchen tunes it not to A=415 or lower, but rather at A=441 (according to the computer software he used for tuning only once, humorously, to demonstrate some inscrutable graphics).

With such a sweet-toned instrument, Kitchen made beautiful, ravishing music, observing all Bach’s dynamic markings and slurs where notated, and with greater difficulty bowing the notes that are not slurred through the smoothest, yet fastest change-of-bowing technique imaginable, with nary a scratch or scrape. He didn’t just swipe at the lower melodic notes — they continued to ring as melody — but miraculously differentiated their tones from what was going on above. Robin Stowell has written a fine article in The Musical Times (1987) comparing about fifty editions of the Sonatas and Partitas, noting that, “the most puzzling of the enigmas are Bach’s original bowings, invariably regarded as impracticable by most editors.” What a joy to hear Nicholas Kitchen breeze through these problems with such beauty and confidence, with Bach’s manuscript (not some other edition) right in front of you!

Kitchen took no repeats except in Partita No. 3, where they were necessary for his formal considerations. Although he generally did not use vibrato, he did on occasion, particularly approaching cadences (even Bach enigmatically calls for it once). He takes wonderfully appropriate liberties, gently bending a line here and there with rubato totally foreign to the old dicta of regular tempi in Bach’s music — but always just right.

Stowell further remarks that, “Such performance problems posed by the richness of Bach’s polyphony, especially in the sonatas’ fugues, led [David] Boyden [in The History of Violin Playing from Its Origins to 1761 (1965)] to liken these works to Hamlet, as they are ‘full of the greatest beauties and bewildering enigmas of interpretation.’” At the end of his detailed comparisons, Stowell writes, “Violinists should be warned, however, that such a guide cannot be comprehensive and that no amount of editorial verbiage, symbols or other additions is adequate substitute for the personal creativity of a ‘tasteful’ performer.” Nicholas Kitchen clearly is that performer, with both the humility and brilliance of his approach to this deeply introspective and improvisatory music, as his performance reveals.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.