BANGING AND BOWING

Juilliard Percussion Ensemble at Alice Tully Hall

Last night we stepped way out of our usual territory to review some exciting new works for percussion by faculty members and graduate students from Princeton University, a leading incubator of compositional talent in the United States. Whilst we have found contemporary vocal compositions to be largely boring, contemporary percussion compositions we found to be rather exciting, as they created an exotic soundscape.

We heard six works and weren't bored for a minute. The opening work Four for Flexatones by Juri Seo captured our attention not only because of the originality of the handheld instruments but because of the aspect of body movement. The four musicians walked around the stage and tossed the sounds around as if they were balls. It was a playful dance in which the musicians became dancers accompanying themselves. At one moment, they simultaneously drew bows from their backpacks and appeared like samurai.

Steven Mackey's Madrigal, conducted by Daniel Druckman, created a pleasing sound world in which the female voice was just another component. Soprano Michelle Geffner has a lovely voice but, unfortunately, the text she sang was incomprehensible. We are not even sure it was English. But it didn't matter. It was the texture of the voice melded with a variety of percussion instruments that was so pleasurable to the ear.

We loved Donnacha Dennehy's Surface Tension in which the percussionists produced waves of sound, rising and falling with varying dynamics. The idea was to let the drums sing on various pitches, manipulating the tone by means of blowing air through a tube into the side of the drum. Various other techniques were seen.  For example, the keys of the vibraphone and the marimba were sometimes bowed instead of struck, producing interesting timbres.

Oscar Bettison's Four Drums for Dresden was the least interesting of the six pieces, relying more on a theoretical concept than on a compelling result. The idea was to get live percussion to imitate electronic dance music. To our ears, it sounded a lot like noise, although we did enjoy the syncopated central section.

Far more interesting was Caroline Shaw's taxidermy in which the musicians played on flower pots. This sounded original and was especially pleasing when they were played in intervals of a minor third. We thought of the glass harmonica and how simple household objects are worth exploring for their unusual voices. The spoken text at the conclusion of the piece added nothing of value. The music spoke for itself.

In Pillar IV, Andy Akiho used a variety of experimental techniques to produce a collection of odd sounds. There were some highly pitched sounds punctuated by the forceful bass drum. Conventional percussion instruments were played in unorthodox manners, reminding us very much of children at play who don't follow the rules. It was a freeing experience watching drums being beaten on their frames and vibraphones being struck on the tubes instead of the keys.

Let's have a big round of applause for innovation and experimentation! The Juilliard musicians were Omar El-Abidin, Simon Herron, Euijin Jung, Yoon Jun Kim, Benjamin Cornavaca, Toby Grace, Joseph Bricker, Tyler Cunningham, Stella Perlic, Yibing Wang, Jacob Borden, Harrison Honor, Mizuki Morimoto, and Leo Simon.

(c) meche kroop

LINCOLN CENTER GREAT PERFORMERS--MARK PADMORE AND PAUL LEWIS

Paul Lewis and Mark Padmore at Alice Tully Hall

There were four people onstage last night at Alice Tully Hall, as part of Lincoln Center's Great Performers series.  There was the veteran interpreter of art song Mark Padmore, there was the sensitive collaborative pianist Paul Lewis, there was the 19th c. Romantic poet Heinrich Heine, and there was the remarkable 19th c. composer of art song Robert Schumann.

How wonderful to have an entire evening devoted to the Schumann settings of Heine's poetry, so movingly interpreted by Mr. Padmore and Mr. Lewis, whose intense sensitivity to the music and to the singer contributed greatly to an evening of pure delight. We confess to being completely mesmerized.

Mr. Padmore made a few opening remarks about Schumann sending his songs to Clara as a means of communicating his feelings. Surely the young Robert did not mean to communicate the negativity toward love and toward women that we read in Heine's text. We know not what romantic injury Heine suffered to inspire such anger.

We have been reading the poetry aloud and reveling in its astute use of the German language, it's rhythm and its rhyme. Would that a contemporary American poet could so inspire a contemporary American composer!

In any event, Schumann's melodic vocal lines and luscious piano accompaniment went a long way toward softening the harsh sentiments found in Heine's poetry, poetry that inspired so many 19th c. composers.

In the performances of Mr. Padmore and Mr. Lewis, we barely noticed the superlative technical aspects and chose to dwell on the communicative aspects. Mr. Padmore has had a long and illustrious career to focus on communicating emotions to the audience. By virtue of alterations of color and dynamics, and by means of sensitive phrasing, every ounce of emotion was conveyed.

Mr. Lewis' attention to both the piano part and the vocal line made him the perfect partner for Mr. Padmore. He is the type of collaborative pianist that we most enjoy, always light of touch and leaving the final note suspended in the air. There was no mention of his collaborative work in the biography in the program but it was evident that there is a great deal more to his artistry than his solo performances and those with orchestras.

The program included two cycles Schumann composed in 1840. As Mr. Padmore pointed out, they were never meant to be performed in a concert hall, but rather to be played and sung at home. We have observed the incredible intimacy they elicit when performed by students in recital at small venues. To our surprise, Mr. Padmore evoked the same feeling in the vast reaches of Alice Tully Hall.

Liederkreis, Op.24 comprises nine songs about love and loss and was less familiar to us than the cycle that closed the program, Dichterliebe which we have heard countless times.

In "Ich wandelte unter den Bäumen" we loved the tender coloration and the way the quotation of the bird song was differentially colored. In terms of piano and voice working together, we favored "Lieb Liebchen" which not only enjoys a memorable melody but also a piano part that recreates the hammering of the heart. 

The passionate "Warte, warte, wilder Schiffman" is remarkable for its scale passages in the piano and the touch of humor at the end. As a matter of fact, in almost every song Schumann employed a graceful postlude to somewhat undercut Heine's bitterness. He seems to want us to feel consoled.

The familiar Dichterliebe is another story altogether; we have always thought of it as a spurned young man reflecting on the sanguine origin of his romance and the final despair when his beloved marries someone else. In the resolution of the final song, he buries all his sad songs in a coffin and sinks it in the Rhein, a fitting way to find what today is called "closure".

One could not keep from being charmed by the melodious introductory lied, "Im wunderschönen Monat Mai", or puzzled when the song just trails off without the lovely piano postlude referred to earlier. It segues immediately into the tearful "Aus meinen Tränen sprießen", followed by the exuberant "Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube".

Love is like that, especially in the young. Observe any teenager with his cyclothymia!  She loves me, yay!  She loves me not, woe is me! In "Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome", the poet sees his beloved everywhere, even in a portrait in the cathedral in Cologne!

We were waiting to hear what Mr. Padmore would do with "Ich grolle nicht". He held back on the bitterness until the end, a valid and interesting interpretation. 

We heard such rapid figures in the piano in "Und wüsten's die Blumen" and in the bitter "Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen" that the quiet spare piano part of "Hör' ich das Liedchen klingen" came as a surprise. 

Also of interest was the contrast between the jolly piano part of "Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen" and the painfully ironic text. Perhaps our favorite song was "Ich hab' im Traum geweinet" in which the voice begins a capella and the piano part comprises a punctuation of chords. We think of the evanescence of dreams and Mr. Padmore conveyed the intimacy of a confession.

In between these two major Schumann cycles we heard some of Brahms' settings of Heine's poetry. It seemed to us that Brahms, a protegé of Schumann, chose texts of less emotional import. Truth to tell, we mostly prefer Brahms' settings of folk songs and cannot say why. There was nothing wrong with the later life songs we heard last night but presenting them in between two such major cycles probably did not give us a chance to appreciate them fully.

(c) meche kroop

STRAUSS SOPRANO SINGS IT

Anne Schwanewilms (Photo by Javier del Real)

Fans of Richard Strauss' prolific song output turned out in full force at Alice Tully Hal for a recital by the illustrious soprano Anne Schwanewilms and her perfect piano partner.Malcolm Martineau. These ardent fans showed their appreciation with thunderous applause and a standing ovation at the end; Ms. Schwanewilms repaid them with two outstanding encores which, for us, were the highlights of the afternoon.

Although not quite as prolific a songwriter as Franz Schubert, Strauss' contribution to the lieder literature is incalculable. Are all the songs of equal value?  Of course not, and Schubert wrote a few duds himself! How does a singer make her selections from among such abbondanza? With great difficulty, we imagine.

A number of Ms. Schwanewilms' choices were unknown to us and will require subsequent hearings for us to decide how much we like them. But there were no such reservations about the familiar lieder. Like many others, we take pleasure in hearing the familiar, especially if the artist can bring something new to the performance.

Ms. Schwanewilms has impeccable technique and innate musicality, knowing just how to use phrasing, word coloration, and dynamic variety to bring out the subtleties of the text and music. She achieved expressiveness with such an economy of gesture that when she gesticulated considerably in her performance of "Ach, was Kummer, Qual und Schmerzen" it took us by surprise.

There is yet another reason that our interest was keener for the familiar songs. The texts were provided in the program but the light was insufficient to follow along and looking down at a program always robs us of our connection with the artists; a strong case could be built for projected titles. We do speak German but in the stratospheric registers in which Strauss wrote, the words were not uniformly comprehensible.

So, on that account, we preferred her performance of the joyful tribute to the beloved-- "Du meines Herzens Kronelein", the haunting "Die Nacht", and the encores--the ethereal "Morgen" with its gorgeous arpeggios, and the nostalgic "Allerseelen", all of which we know well.

We also enjoyed "Geduld" which exploited the secure lower register of Ms. Schwanewilms' instrument and had a pleasing rocking rhythm from Mr. Martineau's piano.

Written much later were "Drei Lieder der Ophelia" (1918) in which the two artists conveyed the character's unbalanced mental state with eerie harmonies and a dramatic vocal line.

Each half of the program inserted a set of lieder by Hugo Wolf, a contemporary of Strauss, all of which utilized texts by Morike, a poet in whose work the composer found ample inspiration. Our favorites included the mournful "Verborgenheit" and the forlorn lament of an abandoned maiden "Das verlassene Magdlein" in which the strange harmonies combine with the text to paint a picture for us, like a scene in an opera. 

For much of the program, while listening to the unfamiliar songs, we abandoned the attempt to understand the words and focused on the sound of Ms. Schwanewilms' voice. We found it most agreeable in the pianissimo passages; her high notes floated beautifully. However, we heard a harsh metallic edge when she sang forte in the upper register.

Comparing notes with a few friends who sat closer, we realized that the balcony is a poor place to experience the connection with the artists that we cherish in a lieder recital, which is why we prefer a smaller hall.

Mr. Martineau, as one would expect, played in total support of the singer, never overwhelming.  We think of him as "magic hands Martineau"!

(c) meche kroop