Magical, Believable Petrushka

November 13, 2010

Magical, Believable Petrushka

by Susan Miron

Puppeteer Basil Twist (Leroy Door photo)

Basil Twist, nine puppeteers, and twin Russian-born pianists, Irina and Julia Elkina, presented an enthralling Petrushka at the Paramount Theater on Nov. 11. (The show continues through Nov. 21.) Co-sponsored by ArtsEmerson and the Celebrity Series of Boston, this ingenious production, commissioned in 2001, was the brainchild of Twist, a third-generation award-winning puppeteer. He was inspired by the famed 1911 Ballet Russe production created by Michel Folkine and danced by Vaslav Nijinsky.
The pianists, who have played together since the age of five (we never do find out their ages), based their two-piano arrangement of  Petrushka on Stravinsky’s four-hand version from 1947 and Grigoriy Korchmar’s handwritten arrangement for three movements. (The program lists the pianist/composer’s last name incorrectly as “Krochmar.” For those unfamiliar with Korchmar, he was born in Baltiysk in 1947. Although little-known outside his native Russia, he is a prominent figure in the musical life of St. Petersburg. A piece of his was played at a faculty recital at Longy last spring.
The two grand pianos were on opposite sides of a ten-foot-square frame which acted as both an unexpected screen and the location for this magical Petrushka. As the performance is a mere thirty-five minutes long, the evening began with an apt opener, Stravinsky’s lovely three-movement Sonata for Two Pianos, with an abstract “fantasia of puppetry.” I have heard this piece played far more dramatically by Roberto Poli and Sergey Schepkin at Jordan Hall in 2002; However, it was hard  to get a good sense of the balance as critics were assigned seats at the sides and near-back of the hall. The surprising element was the appearance inside the darkened frame of seemingly free-floating geometrical images that danced around, reshaping themselves one color at a time — yellow, turquoise, red, purple, blue. It was quite mystifying until the performance segued into  ”Petrushka,” and we realized the puppeteers in black velvet moving the puppets had been behind the moving of the shapes. It served as a enchanting prelude.

Duet between the Ballerina and the Moor (Leroy Door photo)

The two Elkinas switched pianos for Petrushka: Suite for Two Pianos. It worked well and was well played. However, I actually prefer the virtuosic one-piano version to the sister’s new arrangement and still love the orchestral version with its myriad colors best of all. From the moment the scene opened at the Shrove-Tide Fair, the audience was spell-bound. The three puppets — the Moor, the Ballerina and Petrushka — are magical. They (especially Petrushka) actually convince us that they are living creatures with all the emotions and passions of humans. Each of the three puppets/marionettes is controlled by three people, and their range of motion is astonishing. Petrushka, who falls in love with the Ballerina, flies and flits about, doubles over, is pursued by a huge bear claw and fangs, is killed by the Moor, then comes back to life in, of all places, the audience’s left side. Petrushka’s spirit, however tragic, is unstoppable; we know to love him from the moment he appears.
The four-foot-high Ballerina, however, often steals the show. As bone-thin and leggy as many ballerinas wish they could be, the Ballerina seems, physically, very close to human. There would seem nothing — except to love Petrushka — that she can’t do. The puppetry here is absolutely astonishing; I have never seen anything approaching it, even in puppet-loving Prague.
Both Czech and Japanese puppetry influence this production. Bunraku, probably less well known to Western audiences, has a thousand-year-old Japanese heritage that has evolved over the years; the puppets, around three-and-a-half feet tall, now seem more real. Originally operated by one person, they now are cleverly designed to be operated by three puppeteers, visible although shrouded in black.
Twist worked closely with the two pianists and was guided, he writes, by Stravinsky’s music. “It inspired… every fantastic image in my head, and now on stage. In many cases my understanding of the music has led to different characterizations and narrative action than the original production.” I loved this production, but hearing “Petrushka” in its many piano versions always feels to me like hearing it in black and white, so to speak. The color here came from the three puppets, the light show, and the Twist trademark wavy curtains. As said, the performance was fifty-five minutes long; I could have watched Basil Twist’s puppets all night.

Susan Miron is a book critic, essayist, and harpist. Her last two CDs featured her transcriptions of keyboard music of Domenico Scarlatti.

Sir Simon Rattle and Musicians Give Their All

December 6, 2010

Sir Simon Rattle and Musicians Give Their All

by Susan Miron

Jordan Hall was only partially full for one of the season’s most exciting concerts, “Concert for the Cure” on Sunday night, Dec. 5. Although the concert featured two superstars, conductor Sir Simon Rattle and pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin, and had plenty of pre-concert press coverage, people might have stayed away because of the ticket prices ($100 and $150). The brainchild of flutist Julie Scolnik, who had breast cancer five years ago, this concert, presented by the Susan G. Komen organization, was meant “to raise funds and awareness in the fight against breast cancer.” Skolnick spoke eloquently about her time in the chemo chair, accompanied by music on her Ipod, which gave her hope through this ordeal.
If less than lucky in health, she was extremely lucky with her choice of friends, many of whom played in the orchestra. (Everyone involved, from Marc-André Hamelin to Sir Simon, volunteered their services). While subbing at BSO, she had befriended Sir Simon in the coffee room at Symphony Hall and renewed their friendship a few years later. When she mentioned her dream of this concert, he jumped at the opportunity to help out, but had only one day free, which was yesterday. For no fee, he drove up from NYC, conducted a three-hour rehearsal and a two-hour concert, then drove back for a 9:30 A.M. rehearsal at the Metropolitan Opera Monday. Sir Simon is an unusually easy and expressive conductor to follow. Both before and after the concert, the players seemed ecstatic about the chance to work with him. It’s not often one sees so many seasoned players this elated. Sir Simon was the evening’s hero before he conducted a note.
The evening opened with one of Boston’s beloved new musicians, Marc-Andre Hamelin, playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto in G major, K. 543, a favorite of Leonard Bernstein. There is, as those who know Mr. Hamelin’s playing and repertoire, nothing he cannot play brilliantly. For those who know him “merely” as a player of monstrously difficult repertoire, the surprise here was that he was a stellar player of Mozart — a model of clarity, intelligence, and beautiful scale work and voicing. It is always a privilege to hear this thoughtful pianist. Sir Simon, especially in the third movement with its catchy tunes and horn calls, seemed to be having a terrific time. It was a great collaboration.
Mahler’s gorgeous Adagietto from Symphony No. 5 for harp and strings has different meanings for many people. To harpists, it’s an audition piece; it is the heartbeat of the movement, and rhythmically tricky. Last night’s harpist, Boston Symphony’s Jessica Zhou, is another wonderful new musical citizen. She was placed towards the rear of the stage, but every note she played came through with poignancy and elegance. This was music for anyone’s Ipod, and aptly chosen for this program.
The Brahms Symphony No. 2 received a spectacular performance. The four horns, the BSO’s James Sommerville, Richard Sebring, Jason Snider and Eric Ruske, gave stunning performances. Sommerville’s solos were, as always, simply perfection. The trombones,  Stephen Lange (of the BSO), Ross Holcombe and Gabriel Langfur, were also excellent. (One wanted to know where the others usually played). The strings, especially the first violins,played beautifully, and BSO oboist John Ferillo was his customary superb self. Throughout the winds had impeccable intonation and the strings played with real beauty. For those who love Brahms 2, this was a performance not to be missed. I do not expect to hear a better one, ever.
Each of these pieces were played by pros or people about to be pros. I think the very rare opportunity to play for Sir Simon was surely an incentive to play unusually well. It seems unlikely he will soon be returning to the BSO, and this seemed extra sad given the response he elicited from these players. Conducting is far more than hand gestures and facial expressions and a good baton technique. The charismatic Sir Simon, whose conducting doesn’t draw attention to itself, had the orchestra produce breathtaking crescendos and playing of memorable musicianship. He produced amazing results, and his players certainly loved him last night. It was one of those concerts that both the too-small audience and the players will not soon, if ever, forget.
Besides the exorbitantly-priced tickets, there were a few things that could have been easily remedied. The “Concert for the Cure Orchestra” was filled with people from orchestras and chamber ensembles besides the BSO, and without adding a page to the program book, it would have been very helpful to know where many of these musicians play. Also, knowing (yesterday, for example) that attendance at this concert would be low, it would have been great to have made tickets available — to students, to anyone! — so that more than the center section would be filled. That so few people experienced this great concert is a real shame.

Susan Miron is a book critic, essayist, and harpist. Her last two CDs featured her transcriptions of keyboard music of Domenico Scarlatti.

 

Larget-Caplan Doing Everything Right

January 8, 2011

Larget-Caplan Doing Everything Right

by Susan Miron

Some thirty markedly enthused people gathered on Friday, January 7, at the small recital room at New School of Music in Cambridge to hear guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan in a program that mixed well known and unknown pieces and composers. Larget-Caplan is in the beginning stages of what promise to be a good career. He’s doing everything right — making interesting CDs, commissioning and performing both classical and Spanish and Latin American music, often with a dancer, and playing very well.
Dressed all in black with a red tie, Larget-Caplan opened his program with J.S. Bach’s Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E-Flat Major, BWV 998, originally titled Compositionen für die Laute, in E flat. Written at the time of Bach’s lute suites, it was probably performed on a lute-harpsichord. The fugue is longer than the other two movements combined, and like most Bach fugues, presents traps that can be most disheartening. As many performers know, opening with Bach may be great for the audience, but is always better if one had already rid oneself of nerves. Larget-Caplan, who played it in D Major, got through it with grace.
From the Quatre Pièces Brèves by Frank Martin (1890-1974) on, Larget-Caplan seemed more at ease (who wouldn’t be after performing a Bach fugue?) and his playing immediately became far more interesting and colorful. The program notes explained that these four lovely pieces were written in 1933 for guitarist Andrés Segovia who refused to play it (another idol goes up in flames). Martin then re-scored it for piano, calling it Guitarre. Kevin Siegfried’s (b. 1969) “Tracing a Wheel on Water” was commissioned by Larget-Caplan in 2003 and has had spectacular and deserved success since then. According to the program notes, it has been performed in over 50 concerts and is the title of one of Larget-Caplan’s CDs. It’s a hypnotic work, what the composer says “is a meditation on my experiences of the water’s surface… a manner in which flowing circles on the water’s surface envelop one another in a rhythm that is always new, yet never changing.” This hypnotic and beautifully written work was, for me, the highlight of a really interesting concert.
Elegie für die guitarre by J.K. Mertz (1806-1856) was, in guitar terms, a long piece, about ten minutes. A piece of great charm, it was just the right thing for a nasty January evening. At least two heads in the audience were contentedly bobbing along the whole piece; people seemed to be entering a state of total relaxation.
If so, they were awakened in the most seductive manner with the ever-famous Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquin Rodrigo (1901-1999), here performed with piano accompaniment. Do most people know him for any other piece? This is yet another piece Segovia refused to play, as he did not approve of the rasqueados (flamenco strumming) of the first movement.  I admit, I did not look forward to hearing this colorful orchestral accompaniment in a keyboard reduction, as piano and plucked strings (harp and guitar) need a pianistic wizard to get the balance right. Luckily, Larget-Caplan had a terrific pianist, Kai-Ching Chang, about whom I cannot rave enough. The two musicians played superbly together, so the two (first and second) movements they played were like the most exciting of chamber music pieces. Chang might not be well known in Boston, but as a collaborative pianist she cannot be beat. The Rodrigo was full of excitement and passion; I felt as if I were transported to Seville. I’d hear it again in a heartbeat.
I have a new way of scoring concerts. 1), Would I see the performer or group again? Absolutely. 2), Did I like the evening enough to shell out hard cash for a CD? Reader, I bought two.

Susan Miron is a book critic, essayist, and harpist. Her last two CDs featured her transcriptions of keyboard music of Domenico Scarlatti.

Fuse Classical Music Review: The BEMF's Impressive "Dido and Aeneas"

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Nov 282010

BEMF’s Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs have, once again, produced a work of impeccable and imaginative scholarship for a production that’s not only historically informed, but musically, dramatically, and visually entertaining.

Laura Pudwell performs the role of Dido in the BEMF's production of DIDO AND AENEAS. Photo: André Costantini

Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell and Nahum Tate. Presented by the Boston Early Music Festival. At New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, Boston, MA, through November 28.

By Susan Miron.
Henry Purcell’s (1659–1695) opera Dido and Aeneas has been so popular over the past 75 years that there have been nearly 50 commercial recordings. I grew up on the record featuring Dame Janet Baker—for me she is the perfect Dido. The record was about 50 minutes long.
Saturday night’s performance by the Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) clocked in at about an hour longer with not a dull moment. The two co-directors of BEMF had added several pieces of Purcell’s music that fit in perfectly. This is the third chamber opera that the BEMF has produced since 2008; each has featured full costumes and elements of Baroque dance. Their 2009 production of Handel’s Acis and Galatea was a great success. And if the tumultuous applause at the end of last evening is any indication, the BEMF’s Dido and Aeneas falls in the same category.
The libretto by Nahum Tate is based on the story of Dido and Aeneas in the fourth book of Virgil’s Aeneid. No one is really sure about early history of the work—much has disappeared. Only a libretto from an early performance survives. BEMF points out that “the earliest copies of the score come from at least 60 years after the work was composed, and lack the music for the original prologue as well as incidental music and dances indicated in the score.”
The first performance might—or might not have been—at a girls’ school in Chelsea, outside of London in the late 1680s.
BEMF’s Dido and Aeneas is the result of scrupulous scholarship and informed imaginative leaps. In a Boston Globe interview, BEMF’s co-director Stephen Stubbs admits that he sees this project “not only as a reconstruction but also as an attempt to jolt listeners out of their familiarity with a cherished favorite . . . If you think of it like a restorer of a painting, where there’s a corner missing, you can pretty much imagine what I did—try to make the corner feel as if it fits.”
One of the missing corners involves choosing music for the opening, which Stubbs found in one of Purcell’s many songs. Dance and movement are as integral to this performance as it was in the girls’ school in the 1680s that may have first produced this opera. Caroline Copeland and Carlos Fittante, the featured Baroque dancers, were particularly excellent. The many costumes—all recycled from other productions—were apt and often hilarious. The chamber ensemble, a string quartet and harpsichord, were led by the BEMF’s two co-directors, O’Dette and Stubbs, who were fabulous. O’Dette and Stubbs alternately strummed small, Baroque guitars and a very lengthy archlute and theorbo. Both renowned lutenists, they were the heart of the ensemble.

(l-r) Brenna Wells, Jason McStoots, José Lemos, and Carrie Henneman Shaw in BEMF's production of DIDO AND AENEAS. Photo: André Costantini

To create a more intimate atmosphere, a tapestry covers the back wall of Jordan Hall. As the program notes point out, Dido is less an opera than a “court masque, an exemplar of that unique blend of aural, visual, and intellectual spectacle that embodied the extravagantly self-reflexive ethos of the English court throughout the seventeenth century.”
Several singers were downright wonderful, but if there there were a prize for most entertaining, it would go to Jason McStoots, who, in his most memorable guise, wore a costume that featured a waist big enough to look like a table for two, out of which crept another person. McStoots, a tenor, sang exquisitely, as did Dido’s sister Belinda, played by an up and coming Baroque singer, Yulia Van Doren. The vocal ensemble, twenty people in all, sang with gusto.
For many people, Dido is all about Dido’s Lament, a.k.a. “When I am laid in earth,” one of the most wrenching arias in all of music. Here Dido, Queen of Carthage, realizes she has been abandoned her beloved, the Trojan hero Aeneas. As Dido sings this, one by one the other singers lower themselves to sitting positions, as if the whole world were collapsing around them—a brilliant idea.
This production’s Dido, Laura Pudwell, was, to my ears, disappointing, but to be fair she had some tough competition on CD. I have both Jesse Norman and particularly the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson in my ears, and Pudwell’s singing, for me, lacks their evocation of raw despair, particularly when Dido sings out in her top register, “Remember me, but ah! forget my Fate!” then melts down to the floor. All the male singers, as well as Douglas Williams as Aeneas, are excellent.
BEMF’s O’Dette and Stubbs have, once again, produced a work of impeccable and imaginative scholarship for a production that’s not only historically informed, but musically, dramatically, and visually entertaining.

Fuse Classical Music Review: A Far Cry — 17 Strings Strong

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Dec 212010

There is no shortage in this town of chamber music groups trying to carve out a charismatic niche of their own. This seems to have come naturally to this high energy, highly likable ensemble.

A Far Cry. Can this group do no wrong?

By Susan Miron.
Seventeen strings strong, A Far Cry is that rare kind of musical group that appears to do everything right. As Chamber Orchestra in Residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, A Far Cry presented the last concert in the museum’s Tapestry Room on December 20. (For the next few months, concerts will be held at the Pozen Center at MassArt). The place was packed, partly because of the rare appearance of a bandoneón and guitar in Los Cuatros Estaciones Porteñas, a tango lover’s dream.
In their third plus year together, this youthful group has received plenty of praise. Although they appear all over the map, the leaderless and conductor-less group has made itself part of the Jamaica Plain and larger Boston community, donating proceeds from their concerts to homeless shelters and partnering with other non-profits such as the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The famed Orpheus Ensemble in New York began in much the same leaderless way 30 years ago but without the help of the Internet or YouTube.
There is no shortage in this town of chamber music groups trying to carve out a niche of their own to get media attention and audiences. This seems to have come naturally to this high energy, highly likable ensemble. I certainly don’t recall a group with this many players smiling at the sheer joy of music-making or one with such fervent audience and community support.
The program notes themselves were noteworthy, although I had to resort to the internet to find out they are the work of their “mysterious, elusive musicologist-at-large” Kathryn Bacasmot. They began: “This is your shovel. The music is your earth. Dig in.” It went on, gratefully for only one paragraph, in a heady, New Age monologue about obsession, orbiting, gravitational pull, life pulsing in time to the music of the spheres, and circular orbits. Remarkably, she went on to write excellent program notes for each piece. She should let herself be acknowledged. Her notes contributed to the enjoyment of the afternoon.

The star of the concert: a bandoneón, a smallish black accordion.

Cantus in Memorium Benjamin Britten by the well-known, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) opened the program. Pärt yearned to meet Britten personally after he began to appreciate the purity of Britten’s music, but Britten died before this came to pass. To acknowledge the composer’s grief, Cantus opens and closes with silence, executed exquisitely with the 17 players taking visible breaths in unison. A ringing bell hit by a mallet chimes in at intervals. The piece becomes more intense and darker, with the focus shifting to the three cellists and two bass players. Then, after more luscious string playing and more chimes, silence.
Edward Elgar’s (1857–1934) lovely Serenade for Strings, first heard in 1892 , let the strings show off their impressive control over dynamics. These seventeen Criers (as they refer to themselves) knew exactly how to build a crescendo as if they were a quartet. What strikes a listener is how this group, whose members play standing (except for the cellos) and reseat themselves after each piece so no one person gets to hog the limelight as concertmaster, plays as if they’ve been together far more than three or four years. They play with youthful exuberance and professional panache.
The Criers took J. S. Bach’s (1865–1750) much loved Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, BWV 1048, at a brisk tempo. Joined by harpsichordist Matthew Hall, they gave an energetic performance, which I, at least, enjoyed far more than performances on historically “correct” instruments.
The highlight of the afternoon was Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla’s (1921–1992) Los Cuatros Estaciones Porteñas, which involved Jason Vieaux, guitar, and Julien Labro playing bandoneón , a smallish, black accordion, which he seemed to be holding on his knee. This was the world premiere of an arrangement for guitar, bandoneón, and strings by the bandoneónist Juilien Labro. Piazzola has had a resurgence of popularity as The Go-To Composer for Tangos (In his tango CD, Yo Yo Ma helped to spread his posthumous fame).
Divided into seasons, starting with summer, Verano Portena: Allegro, these Four Seasons are a workout for all the players, especially Mr. Labro, who was busy hitting his bandoneón , getting all sorts of vibrato out of it, and playing it for all it was worth. The guitar was—and needed to be—miked, and when he finally got some licks, he was very good. Before these sometimes jazzy, sometimes lushly romantic four seasons were done, nearly everyone had had a solo or had done some fun riffs with either the guitar or bandoneón. The Criers handled tempo changes and every other challenge that these pieces presented with flair and a lot of smiling faces. These players clearly love what they do.

Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla on the bandoneón

The guitar and bandoneón were given an encore piece, “Antonia” from Secret Story by Pat Metheny, which gave Mr. Labro the opportunity to, unexpectedly, blow into his instrument, which sounded like a giant harmonica mixed with a soprano saxophone. It had the atmosphere of a private jam session.
Finally, the slightly exhausted audience was treated to Musica Celestis by Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960), a perfect companion piece to the opening Cantus by Pärt. The program notes here get a little spooky—they talk about “the endless interlocking relationships of every key signature by the interval of a 5th, throwing a lasso out into space, catching a little of the infinite within bar lines dotted with notes.” There was great stillness and a hypnotic—yes, scary—atmosphere: the Criers playing very loudly on up-bows and quietly on down-bows, seeming to put their bows down very slowly, then playing a note, another note, until it became a quiet tune.
A Far Cry can play anything and play it really well. They seem to really like each other, and their love of music is palpable. Each of the concertmasters was terrific, moreover they got me to like music I imagined I would heartily dislike.

Classical Music Sampler: January 2011

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Dec 272010

Boston Symphony Orchestra violinist Arabella Steinbacher

I had always thought of January as a musically quiet month, but looking over the concerts I wanted to see, I realized how it is at least as great a month for concertgoing as any other in Boston. I am betting each of the concerts I listed here will be superb.
By Susan Miron.
January 6–8: The Boston Symphony Orchestra under Maestro James Levine presents a compelling program of Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. At Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA, at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.
January 8: The extraordinary Russian-American pianist Sergey Schepkin performs a fascinating program of music by Bach (Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, BWV 903), Brahms (6 pieces of Op. 118), Schubert/Liszt, and Liszt. At the Kalliroscope Gallery, Groton, MA, at 8 p.m. on Saturday.
January 14: The Cantata Singers continue their year long exploration of the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams and composers who influenced him. The program includes the rarely heard Riders to the Sea, a one-act “music drama” by Vaughan Williams based on the eponymous play by the Irish author John Millington Synge. The concert also includes songs of Gustav Holst, Edward Elgar, Gerald Finzi, and the season’s star, Ralph Vaughan Williams. At New England Conservatory’s (NEC’s) Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street, Boston, MA, at 8 p.m. on Friday.
January 20: Harpsichordist Charles Sherman plays seven sonatas (K. 268, 109, 496, 201, 89, 119, 120) by the ever-inventive Domenico Scarlatti. At the First Church in Boston, 66 Marlborough St., Boston, MA, at 12:15 p.m. on Thursday. Donations accepted.
January 22: The Boston Chamber Music Society presents its Winter Festival 2011, an afternoon of music for four hands/ two pianos (Randall Hodginson and Mihae Lee) along with the superb baritone David Kravitz. There will be music by Satie, Ravel, Poulenc, and Stravinky, including the wonderfully savage Le Sacre de Printemps. At MIT’s Kresge Auditorium, Cambridge, MA, at 4 p.m. on Saturday. There will be a forum at 1:30 p.m. featuring Jonathan McPhee, Music Director of the Boston Ballet, and Ann Allen, a lecturer at the Museum of Fine Arts.

Pianist Jeremy Denk is performing one of the most challenging programs of the season.

January 23: Pianist Jeremy Denk (known to many for his intellectually probing website, think denk) performs as part of the Isabel Stewart Gardner Museum Sunday Concert Series. Denk is playing a fascinating and immensely difficult program, J. S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 and George Ligeti’s Etudes, Book One and Two. This will no doubt be among the most intellectually challenging concerts of the season. His performance, as well as others in the Gardner’s spring series, will be at the Pozen Center at MassArt, Tetlow Street, Boston, MA, at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday.
January 23: Boston Symphony Chamber Players perform with guest pianist Jonathan Bass. A great program that includes music by Peter Liebermann (Sonata for flute and piano, Op. 23) and Mozart (Quintet in E-flat for piano and winds, K.452), as well as Stravinsky’s L’Historie du Soldat (complete with narration). At NEC’s Jordan Hall, Boston, MA, at 3 p.m. on Sunday.
January 27–29: The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), under conductor Christoph von Dohnányi presents more Ligeti—the Double Concerto for Flute and Oboe, played by BSO flutist Elizabeth Rowe and hugely admired oboist John Ferrillo. The program features another beautiful concerto as well, Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 4, K. 218 with violin soloist Arabella Steinbacher, and finally, Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony #7. At Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA, at 8 p.m. on Thursday and Saturday and at 1:30 p.m. on Friday.
January 28: The Boston debut of the Philhamonia Quartett Berlin, which will perform quartets by Shostakovich, Beethoven, and Schubert (the gorgeous “Death and The Maiden”). Presented by the Celebrity Series of Boston at NEC’s Jordan Hall, Boston, MA, at 8 p.m. on Friday.

The Borromeo String Quartet are working their way through Beethoven. Photo: Liz Linder

January 30: The Gardner Sunday Concert Series presents the Borromeo String Quartet in Part III of their traversal of the Complete Beethoven String Quartets. For this concert they are playing the three glorious Op. 59 Quartets, often referred to as the Razumovsky Quartets. If you’ve never heard Beethoven quartets before, try to hear these; there’s no better introduction to Beethoven or his quartets. This performance, as well as others in the Gardner’s spring series, will be at the Pozen Center at MassArt, Tetlow Street, Boston, MA, at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday.

For Those Who Love British Choral Music

Fuse Classical Music Review: For Those Who Love British Choral Music

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Jan 162011

The only thing more unforgettable than this sung story of woe was the eloquent singing of Lynn Torgove. Vaughan Williams could have hoped for no better singer or instrumental ensemble.

Singer Lynn Torgove

The Cantata Singers. At Jordan Hall, 30 Gainsborough Street, Boston, MA, January 14.
By Susan Miron.
The history of British classical music is a strange one. If its recent past becomes more familiar to Boston’s classical music lovers this year, it is certainly the doing of conductor David Hoose and his troupe, The Cantata Singers and Ensemble.
Their focus this year has been on the compositions and on the composers influenced by Ralph (pronounced Rafe) Vaughan Williams (1872–1958). Their third Vaughan Williams focused program took place in Jordan Hall on Friday night. The evening’s first part, David Hoose’s 40-minute talk, was as interesting as the musical portion of the evening.
Hoose is a busy conductor (Collage New Music, Director of Orchestral Activities at Boston University, etc.), and if he speaks to his musicians with half the enthusiasm he spoke to those at the pre-concert lecture, he must be immensely inspiring. His enthusiasm is extraordinary; it is as if he were sharing an important secret he could no longer keep to himself.
The secret is the odd story of British music compared to that of the continent, most importantly Germany. Frankly, most of the composers Hoose discussed are just names, if that, even to professional musicians. He pointed out that there has been a long history of disdain in both Germany and the United States for British music, with admiration reserved for only a few pieces, such as Ralph Vaughan Williams’s luscious “The Lark Ascending” for Violin and Orchestra and his “The Wasps,” while generally neglecting the choral music.
Hoose believes that, after a chain of great English choral composers (Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, and Purcell), English music “went to sleep.” Then, centuries later, a renaissance of English music began with performances of “a few stunning orchestral works” by Edward Elgar—Enigma Variations (1899) and The Dream of Gerontius (1900)—followed by Ralph Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony (1909), Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910), and A London Symphony (1913). There were other massive orchestral works contributing to the English awakening that would, in turn, “shake the resistance of the most dedicated Germanophile.”
But the evening’s music and certainly much of the music of the English revival sprung from local church choirs, madrigal groups, and community choruses. Vaughan Williams and his close friend composer Gustav Holst were deeply interested in the music, particularly the folk songs, that grew from British soil. Singing was indispensable to this renaissance of English music then, as it continued to be through the twentieth century.

Oboist Peggy Pearson — she produces an extraordinary sound.

Hoose posits that what makes a sound “English” is “a velvet kind of fog.” He feels that English a cappella singing has “a freedom, a natural declamation of the text going back to William Byrd and Henry Purcell.” Well, that’s a lot to live up to, and the program’s first half, made up of seven songs for unaccompanied chorus by Gustav Holst, Edward Elgar, Gerald Finzi, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, were very enjoyable indeed.
Vaughan Williams’s “Three Shakespeare Songs” (two from The Tempest and “Over Hill, Over Dale” from A Midsummer’s Night Dream“) were great fun, as was his “Loch Lomond,” a Scottish folksong with the familiar refrain “O you’ll take the high road and I’ll take the low road And I’ll be in Scotland afore ye.” “I love my love” was a Cornish folksong, wonderfully arranged by Holst, with its touching text sung by women: “I love my love because I know my love loves me!”
The Cantata Singers are fortunate to perform alongside of some of Boston’s best instrumentalists. Oboist Peggy Pearson already appeared this season as the soloist in RVW’s 1944 Oboe Concerto, but when Pearson plays as beautifully as she did in Riders to the Sea (1936), Ralph Vaughan Williams’s 35-minute—and only—opera, you can lose sense of everything outside of her sound—she’s that extraordinary.

Irish playwright J. M. Synge

Riders is set to a tragic drama by the Irish playwright J. M. Synge’s play (1909). Because of the short length of this music-drama, which Vaughan Williams called Riders, it has received relatively few performances, and that is unfortunate.
Synge’s (best known for his play Playboy of the Western World) sorrowful tale centers on Maurya, sung by Lynn Torgove, a mother who has lost four of her sons to the sea, along with six other characters, including two sailors. Not at all dissonant, Riders is built on triads from different tonal spheres, which can, as Hoose puts it, “give you sea sickness.” The story chronicles the inexorable pull of the sea for the men of the family until none are left alive.
The singers stand in the back of the small orchestra, not always a strong choice acoustically speaking. A wind machine acts as the drafty pull of the sea, which gobbles up Maurya’s family piece by piece. The only thing more unforgettable than this sung story of woe was the eloquent singing of Torgove. Vaughan Williams could have hoped for no better singer or instrumental ensemble.