NIGHT SONGS AND LOVE WALTZES

Nicole Cabell, Kate Aldrich, Greg Anderson, Elizabeth Joy Roe, Maestro Ted Sperling, Nicholas Phan and Nimon Ford

It is obvious that Maestro Ted Sperling adores what he does and so does his audience. It seems as if he loved putting together the program "Night Songs and Love Waltzes", judging by the enthusiasm with which he introduced each part of the program to the audience at Alice Tully Hall. We would also hazard a guess that the members of Master Voices adore him, such was the rapport he had with them.

What impressed us the most about this esteemed choral group is the clarity of their diction. Text is so important in art song and musical theater! We want to understand every word, and we did when the chorus was singing. We wish we could say the same about the soloists but we cannot. 

Except for a few instances, words were carelessly enunciated and, if you didn't know the songs, you missed a lot of the meaning. This was particularly distressing in the medley of songs from Sondheim's 1972 masterpiece A Little Night Music, in which we wanted to understand every delightful turn of phrase. Apparently, American-born singers do not really work at this clarity.  More's the pity!

The voices were excellent however. Nicole Cabell has a scintillating soprano; Kate Aldrich's mezzo instrument is colorful and well employed; Nicholas Phan's tenor is meltingly tender and especially lovely in Brahms' "Nicht wandle, mein Licht" from Brahms' Liebeslieder Walzer and in Schumann's "Mondnacht", although we were dismayed by his carelessness with the final consonants. Nimon Ford has a substantial baritone which he used well in Brahms' "Unbewegte laue Luft" which had an abrupt change from gentle to passionate.

Our favorite song among the Liebeslieder Walzer was "Am Donaustrande" when the singing abruptly changed color and dynamics in tandem with the text.

Maestro Sperling, in his introduction, pointed out how folks in the 19th c. would spend an evening gathered around the piano making music together; this sounds to us like a lot more fun than sitting some place with friends with each one on his/her cell phone!  

There seemed to be something artificial about the four singers lined up behind those music stands; someday we would love to see this work performed in a less formal setting. Singers trying to act whilst turning pages and glancing down at the score is just not ideal for drawing the audience in.

The "Ständchen" we heard was not the Schubert serenade we always hear. The text by Franz Grillparzer was sung by Ms. Aldrich and echoed by the chorus--a truly lovely effect.

We loved Schumann's Jagdlieder, sung by the men's chorus and accompanied by four French horns played by Zohar Schondorf, Steven Sherts, Kyle Hoyt and Shelagh Abate. The most unusual was "Frühe" in which the vocal lines overlapped.

Sondheim composed A Little Night Music in 3/4 time and Maestro Sperling arranged  a suite of the songs for our delight. Since the words were frequently incomprehensible, we found ourself focusing on the sound of the cello. (Peter Schon and Mairi Dorman-Phaneuf were also wonderful in Mendelssohn's "Verleih uns Frieden").

Clara Schumann's "Gondoliera" was composed as a birthday gift for Robert and served the purpose of making us want to hear more lieder from this somewhat overlooked composer.

Composer Ricky Ian Gordon was in the audience, visibly enjoying the performance of his cycle Life is Love, settings of text by Langston Hughes. Although this is not our kind of music, we did very much enjoy "New Moon" in which the four singers and horns shared overlapping lines with the chorus. We are not sure one could call this a fugue but it was very interesting and complex.

Pianists for the evening were Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Joy Roe who make a compelling duo, sometimes playing on two pianos and sometimes sharing one piano bench. They performed their own wild arrangement of Brahms' Virtuoso Hungarian Dance #5 in F#minor and Astor Piazollo's "Libertango", which involved reaching "under the hood" of the piano and plucking strings.

It was a generous program and everyone walked out smiling. We are left with great admiration for the members of this chorus who must have been extremely well rehearsed.

(c) meche kroop

BELL BOOK AND CANDLE

Sarah Rothenberg and Nicholas Phan

The spare but effective setting for the New York Premiere of A Proust Sonata was designed by Marina Draghici (who also designed the costumes) and comprised stacks of books, a candle, and a bell by which legendary author Marcel Proust (effectively portrayed by Henry Stam) could summon his housekeeper and confidant Céleste (sympathetically portrayed by Nancy Hume).

The stage at French Institute Alliance Francaise was packed with talent for this musical theater piece presented by FIAF and Da Camera of Houston Productions. At the piano was Sarah Rothenberg, famed not only as a performer but as a writer and creator of music theater, uniting music, art, and literature.

Here, she has painted a portrait, so to speak, of Marcel Proust by using his own words from his epic literary masterpiece A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, as well as the memoir of Céleste Albaret. For this multimedia piece, she has employed evocative projections by Hannah Wasileski, and most importantly, music that  Proust mentioned in his work. Each scene utilized projections and music that rounded out the story telling.

A Proust Sonata deals with music and memory. The piece is divided into seven scenes, beginning with memories of childhood and ending with the famous recollection of the madeleine dipped in lime blossom tea.

In between we visited a belle-epoque salon at which Proust met his lover, the gifted composer Reynaldo Hahn, whose songs have delighted us on so many occasions.  At this point we heard tenor Nicholas Phan perform. We have enjoyed Mr. Phan on prior occasions and enjoyed his performance for the most part last night but with an exception. We love a long even Gallic line and don't care for pushing for volume at the upper end of the register.

We had no quibbles with the violin artistry of Boson Mo or the outstanding harmonies of the Daedalus String Quartet, particularly the sublime third movement of Beethoven's String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135, which accompanied the scene in which Proust describes a Vermeer painting.

Other scenes allowed Ms. Rothenberg to share her artistry at the piano with music by all our favorites--Chopin, Schumann, Debussy, Fauré, and Ravel.

Yesterday's review described a scene in which the singer has fallen in love with her iPod and we commented how each generation has its own means of listening to music. This performance illustrated Proust utilizing a device called a "theatrophone", a means which let Proust listen to performances of the Paris Opera by telephone!

Was his childhood  enjoyment of a "magic lantern" so different from today's children being amused on the internet? "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"!

We were tickled to learn that Proust wrote all night long and slept all day!  And here it is after 6:00 AM and we are just finishing our review of this stunning gesamtkunstwerk (to coin a phrase). How impressed we are by scholarship translated into entertainment!

(c) meche kroop

PHANDOM AND A PIECE OF BRASS

Nicholas Phan (photo by Henry Dombey)

We came to last night's Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's recital to hear tenor Nicholas Phan. Sadly, we could barely hear him. Was it because we were on the wrong side of the hall?  Was it because the horn of Radovan Vlatkovic was insufficiently muted? We do not know but it felt like the two artists were competing to be heard. What we do know is that Mr. Phan used a music score and his contact with the audience was thereby impaired.

This was disappointing because we rarely get to hear this wonderful song, the setting of a text by Ludwig Rellstab.

Oh well! We seldom get to hear chamber music and decided to enjoy the lovely program of Romantic era music by composers who wrote for the voice, and whose instrumental music always brings invented lyrics to our mind's ear.

The program opened with four selections from Dvorák's Slavonic Dances. These pieces put the composer on the map and led to many future commissions. We are glad that he was championed by Brahms or the world would never have heard his fine folk-inspired melodies and compelling rhythms. Gloria Chien tickled the treble ivories while Juho Pohjonen handled the lower notes in this four-handed work. We believe the composer orchestrated the work at the same time.

Star French hornist that he is, Mr. Vlatkovic managed to achieve a better balance with the other instrumentalists in Robert Schumann's Andante and Variations for Horn, Two Cellos (Nicholas Canellakkis and Mihai Marica) and Two Pianos (Ms. Chien and Mr. Pohjonen). This is a lovely work with lots of variety and complex rhythms. At one point we heard a motive from the composer's "Seit ich ihn gesehen" from Frauenlieben und leben. The work is infrequently performed due to the combination of instruments.

The two excellent pianists did well by Schubert in his Allegro in A minor for Piano, Four Hands, called "Lebensstürme" which was composed in "sonata-allegro" form. The two very different themes were woven together with fine craftsmanship and were performed with artistry and excitement.

But the highlight of the evening was the well-known Trio in E-flat major for Horn, Violin, and Piano by Brahms. Again, Mr. Vlatkovic balanced his sound well with that of violinist Paul Huang and pianist Mr. Pohjonen. We particularly enjoyed the rhythmic Scherzo with its graceful trio and the sweetly sad violin line in the Adagio mesto. By the time the trio arrived at the final movement, the audience was in a state of rapture.

We have always loved the sound of the French horn, even when it misbehaves, which it usually does.  Not for Mr. Vlatkovic, however. His superb connection with his instrument whipped that piece of brass into shape.

(c) meche kroop