Review: Terry & Kong

Lisa Terry, viola da gamba
Joanne Kong, harpsichord
Jan. 30, University of Richmond

by Francis Church
guest reviewer

J.S. Bach’s three sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord are rarely heard together, and even more rarely in their original instrumentation. Usually, one or another is played on cello, the viola da gamba’s modern successor, and piano, and programmed as a warmup for Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy or whomever.

Such was the case some years back when cellist James Wilson and pianist Joanne Kong opened a recital in the University of Richmond’s Camp Concert Hall with the second of these sonatas, in D major.

Such was not the case in this program, in which Kong, at the harpsichord, was joined by Lisa Terry on the viola da gamba. And the twosome essayed all three of these sonatas in one fell swoop without intermission (but with some enlightening commentary thrown in).

The performance was an eye- and ear-opener. With the lighter texture of both of these instruments, the sonatas were like quicksilver instead of gold. The players were perfectly in balance, a difficult task when they are played on modern instruments. Terry negotiated the seven strings of the viola da gamba with remarkable ease and plenty of smiles. Kong, who has given us such harpsichord masterpieces as Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” was the ever faithful collaborator.

While the gamba sonatas may lack the intellectual firepower of the six suites for solo cello, which are more frequently performed, they nonetheless have a charm of their own that make them more accessible to the average audience. Last night’s audience was hardly average; one could detect many early music buffs in the sizeable crowd.

The sonatas, especially the first in G major, and the second, have plenty of musical and intellectual fodder, especially Bach’s signature counterpoint, in each of their four movements. The third, in G minor, is somewhat weaker, more in the form of a concerto in its three movements, as Kong explained. It was indeed a technical tour de force that left one’s tongue and ears wagging.

Especially poignant was the third slow movement of the first sonata, which one observer has noted, depicts Jesus’ ascent to Calvary. One never could quite pluck Bach’s Christian faith from his musical output. Nor, as last night’s recital revealed, could one extract Bach’s joy in music. Kong and Terry exploited both in a delightful hour and a quarter of music-making that seemed far shorter.

Francis Church, retired music critic of The Richmond News Leader, is a cellist and avid chamber music lover and player.

Review: Richmond Symphony

Steven Smith conducting
Jan. 29, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland

The Richmond Symphony has a history with the music of John Adams. George Manahan, the orchestra’s third music director (1987-99), secured his appointment, in part, with a surprisingly well-received reading of Adams’ “Shaker Loops.” The symphony made its debut at Washington’s Kennedy Center in a performance of Adams’ “Harmonium” in 1988. And, in 1995, it was one of the first regional orchestras to take on the composer’s fiendishly challenging Chamber Symphony.

With its current music director, Steven Smith, the ensemble revisited the Adams symphony in a Metro Collection concert over the weekend. Few veterans of the 1995 performance remain on the orchestra’s roster, but they surely remember that first go; they were no doubt gratified to be part of a much more accomplished rendition this time around.

Adams’ Chamber Symphony, introduced in 1992, was inspired by the 1906 work of the same name by Arnold Schoenberg and by the composers who scored the now-classic cartoons of the 1940s, ’50s and early ’60s, notably Carl Stalling, whose frenetic, wildly inventive scores graced the Looney Tunes animations.

The Schoenberg influence can be heard in Adams’ musical textures; the energy level and often wacky instrumental voicings harken back to Stalling. The jazzy rhythmic character of this piece, and others by Adams (among them, “The Chairman Dances,” the symphonic foxtrot the symphony will play in a forthcoming Masterworks program), are a kind of family inheritance – the composer’s father was a clarinetist who played in jazz and swing bands.

Smith led an energetic performance that did full justice to the intricate combinations and exchanges of instrumental voices, cross-rhythms and perilous balances of the Adams score. Concertmaster Diana Cohen paced a quartet of the orchestra’s principal string players in sizzling fiddle figurations. Wind and brass players chirped and crooned, often at breakneck tempos and in odd time signatures. Russell Wilson, playing electronic keyboard, and the symphony’s percussionists made true grooves of Adams’ jazz rhythms.

Smith and the orchestra pulled off another balancing act in Samuel Barber’s “Capricorn” Concerto (1944), in which a string orchestra supports solos and ensemble playing by flute, oboe and trumpet. Rolla Durham reined in his trumpet to complement the projection and tonal qualities of Mary Boodell’s flute and Shawn Welk’s oboe, while the conductor obtained robust yet bright sonorities from the strings. The sunny character of the piece came through, and with more sonic brilliance than might have been expected in the dry acoustic of Randolph-Macon’s Blackwell Auditorium.

The 20th century gave way to the 18th in the program’s second half, highlighted by a lithe and bracing reading of Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 in D major, the “Haffner,” one of the works with which the composer introduced himself to Vienna. Smith adopted faster tempos, more crisp articulation and less plush string tone than he had in a recent performance of Mozart’s Symphony No. 39. The symphony’s strings were in excellent form, pacing an energized and stylish “Haffner.”

The program also featured a rare sampling of music by Jean-Phillippe Rameau, the greatest French composer of the high baroque, in a suite of three dances from the operas “Platée” and “Les fêtes d’Hébé” arranged by the 19th-century conductor Felix Mottl. Mottl was almost faithful to Rameau’s style – he couldn’t resist adding some romanticized harmonizations to low string parts; and Smith and the orchestra brought more baroque style and sensibility than the arranger could have conceived.

'Cellopaloosa 4' at VCU

Joel Krosnick, cellist of the Juilliard String Quartet, will be the featured guest of Cellopaloosa 4, an instructional event for cellists, on Feb. 12 at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Singleton Arts Center, Park Avenue at Harrison Street in Richmond’s Fan District.

The day-long event, beginning with registration at 8 a.m., will include group "cello choir” sessions led by Jason and Dana McComb, a masterclass for young cellists led by Krosnick and a lecture-demonstration by Krosnick on “The Language of Contemporary Music.” The concluding event will be a cello choir concert at 5:30 p.m.

For information on registering for Cellopaloosa, call the VCU Music Department at (804) 828-1166 or visit http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/study/strings/events/cellopaloosa/cellopaloosa4.html

Review: 'Ben Seni Variations'

Doug Richards, composer & conductor
Jan. 24, Virginia Commonwealth University

Doug Richards, the long-tenured jazz composer and bandleader based at Virginia Commonwealth University, has mined some unexpected sources in recent compositions. In 2008, Richards introduced “Expansions on ‘A Maré Encheu,’ ” a reworking of a Brazilian folk song for orchestra and children’s chorus. Last year, he premiered “Ben Seni Variations,” a modern jazz concerto grosso based on a Turkish folk song.

The premiere took place in Ankara, the Turkish capital, in celebration of the country’s first university jazz studies program, at Hacettepe University State Conservatory; the program is directed by VCU alumnus Emre Kartari.

Now, the “Ben Seni Variations” has received its U.S. premiere before a full house at VCU’s Singleton Arts Center, with the VCU Symphony Orchestra and Montreal-based Ensemble Appassionata accompanying nine soloists: Ara Topouzian, playing the kanun, a Turkish lap harp similar to a dulcimer; trumpeter-fluegelhorn player John D’earth; saxophonist Skip Gailes; pianist Bob Hallahan; guitarist Adam Larabee; vibraphonist Jon Metzger; bassist Victor Dvorkin; and drummers Howard Curtis and Emre Kartari.

“Ben Seni,” conducted by Richards, shared the program with Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor (“From the New World”), in which the VCU Symphony and Ensemble Appassionata were conducted by Daniel Myssyk.

Before Richards’ variations were played, Ayça Gunduz Kartari (drummer Kartari’s wife) sang the original tune, “Beni Seni Sevdigimi Dunyalara Bildirdim,” a plaintive or yearning romance whose modal harmonies and complex rhythms struck Richards as fertile material for extended orchestral treatment.

The variations, which run about half an hour, are elaborately orchestrated – the stage of Vlahcevic Concert Hall has rarely been so packed with musicians – and sometimes rather densely so. Much of the scoring for orchestral winds and strings was barely audible in a performance dominated by amplified, high-energy soloists. (“Beni Seni”was being recorded at the concert; the microphones presumably picked up a lot that listeners’ ears missed.)

What I could hear of the orchestration had a rather cinematic quality, with both vivid and subtle coloristic effects, and more than a few nods toward Stravinsky in its treatments of harmony and rhythm. Among the solos, Topouzian’s kanun sounded idiomatically Middle Eastern, while the other featured instruments gravitated toward “straight-ahead” modern jazz style. The most striking set of variations comes fairly late in the piece, in a lengthy exchange among the vibraphonist and two drummers.

The soloists, most of whom were reprising the parts they played in the premiere in Turkey, include several musicians who’ve long worked with Richards as students and teaching/performing colleagues. It sounds as though the composer crafted the parts played by D’earth, Gailes, Hallahan, Larabee, Dvorkin and Curtis with their personalities and musical strengths very much in mind.

Whether the piece “travels” into the hands of other solo players as well as it travels geographically and stylistically remains to be heard.

UR organ's golden anniversary

The University of Richmond will mark the 50th anniversary of the Rudolf von Beckerath organ in Cannon Memorial Chapel with a recital by UR’s faculty organist, Bruce Stevens, and two alumni, Michael Simpson and Thom Robertson, at
7:30 p.m. Feb. 10.

The program includes works by Buxtehude, Bach, Franck, Reger, Schumann, Rheinberger, Bruhns and others.

Admission is free. For more information, call the UR Music Department at (804) 289-8277.

Review: Ensemble Appassionata

Daniel Myssyk conducting
with Richard Raymond, piano
Jan. 21, Virginia Commonwealth University

Daniel Myssyk, known in these parts as conductor of the VCU Symphony Orchestra, is known in his native Canada as co-founder and music director of Ensemble Appassionata, a string orchestra based in Montreal. Later this week, Myssyk will lead his two orchestras and guests in the U.S. premiere of the “Ben Seni Variations” by VCU’s Doug Richards.

Over the weekend, Ensemble Appassionata and pianist Richard Raymond performed in the university’s Rennolds Chamber Concerts series.

Meat-and-potato repertory, long the series’ standard diet, has given way to more fibrous fare in several of this season’s Rennolds programs. This was one of them: A liver-and-kale first half of works by Paul Hindemith and the Canadian composer André Prévost, with Chopin’s “Andante spianato and Grand Polonaise brilliante” and Dvořák’s Serenade for strings as post-intermission desserts.

Raymond is one of Canada’s most celebrated pianists, and showed why in his performances of the Chopin and Hindemith’s “The Four Temperaments” (1940), introduced as a ballet score for George Ballanchine, now usually heard in its concert version, a kind of sinfonia concertante for piano and strings.

“The Four Temperaments” is a set of variations of three themes on the ancient concept of “four humors” of human personality: the melancholy, the sanguine, the phlegmatic and the choleric. Hindemith’s treatments of these qualities are, to my ears at least, deceptive and/or confusing. His notion of melancholia strikes me as rather sanguine, and his phlegmatic music sounds jolly and animated. The piece is more easily absorbed as an abstract work in neo-classical style.

Raymond reveled in its often elaborate keyboard figurations and interplay between the piano and string soloists and small ensembles; he was especially effective in the fourth, “choleric” variations’ extended conversation between piano and string quartet and quintet. The pianist also brought out the wry humor of Hindemith’s see-sawing between classical and romantic piano rhetoric. And he proved to be a fluent and sensitive interpreter of Chopin in the andante and polonaise.

Ensemble Appassionata delivered a stylish, if rather mellow, performance of the Dvořák serenade, and a concentrated and energetic reading of Prévost’s Scherzo for strings (1960), an unusually accessible example of 12-tone compositional technique driven by off-center rhythms and sliding string effects.

Daniel Myssyk conducts Ensemble Appassionata, the VCU Symphony and guests in Doug Richards’ “Ben Seni Variations” and Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony at 8 p.m. Jan. 24 in VCU’s Singleton Arts Center, Grove Avenue at Harrison Street. Tickets: $15. Details: (804) 828-6776; http://www.vcu.edu/arts/music/dept/events/index.html

Review: Garrick Ohlsson

Jan. 18, University of Richmond

Hearing Garrick Ohlsson play Franz Liszt’s Sonata in B minor from the vantage of a fifth-row seat in Camp Concert Hall of the University of Richmond’s Modlin Arts Center was a total immersion in piano sonority – evidently too much so for a number of patrons around me, who moved back from rows near the stage for the second half of Ohlsson’s
all-Liszt program.

The veteran pianist, who turns 64 in April, is a heavy hitter when that’s called for, as it is in parts of the sonata and much else by Liszt. But this composer also was one of piano music’s most inventive, and at times subtlest, creators of tone color, as well as a frequent employer of pregnant silence. Ohlsson consistently displayed his mastery of those qualities in Liszt, at least as impressively as he played the big chords and glittering runs.

Ohlsson’s selection of works for this recital ran the gamut, from the heavily rhetorical to the delicate, from the evocative to the abstract, from the popular to the obscure.

The sonata and “Mephisto Waltz” No. 1, positioned, respectively, as the climaxes of the first and second halves of the program, received ovations, and deserved them for being both stormily virtuosic and deeply musical. Ohlsson devoted as much care and concentration to less familiar selections, such as “The Gardens of the Villa d’Este” from Book 3 of “Années de Pèlerinage” and “Will o’ the Wisp” from the “Transcendental Etudes.”

His placement of Liszt’s transcription of Bach’s Fantasy and Fugue in G minor at the beginning of the program usefully cleansed the stereotypical image of the composer as a bombastic showman, allowing the listener to hear the following sonata as much more than a romantic finger-buster. Placing “Funérailles” from “Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses” in the second half, as a kind of echo of the sonata, was a canny trick: In fact, “Funérailles,” written three years before Liszt began the sonata, was a pre-echo of, perhaps a template for, the great work.

The programming of this recital also was a constant reminder of how aware the composer was of the music of contemporaries such as Chopin and Wagner, and how influential Liszt was, both on his peers (“Tristan und Isolde” owes more than a bit to the Sonata in B minor) and on generations that followed.

Ohlsson’s performance was as instructive as it was masterful.