| 13 February 2010
Cellist Sol Gabetta. (Photo by Marco Borggreve)
If Sol Gabetta had done nothing else besides come out and play her concerto, the young Argentine cellist might have attracted additional attention for the balletic, kinetic way she moved behind her cello, or the way she smiled and nodded her head along with the music during the moments she wasn’t playing.
But Gabetta also came out and did a fascinating encore, and with that, she helped create an atmosphere of expectation and adventurousness that served the cause of the works she played and prepared the way for a fresh reading of a well-loved late Romantic symphony.
Gabetta appeared Wednesday night at the Kravis Center with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin, one of a handful of conductors at American orchestras who can be relied on to program outside the norm (much like his predecessor in Detroit, the Estonian-born Neeme Järvi). She played a too-rarely heard gem of American composition, the Cello Concerto (Op. 22) of Samuel Barber, whose birth centenary is being celebrated this year in classical circles.
Barber’s Cello Concerto isn’t quite as accessible as his Violin Concerto, but in its own way it is just as moving, and if only for its sheer craftsmanship and exceptional level of good taste it should by rights be a staple of symphonic programs, certainly in its own country.
And Gabetta is a fine cellist, a musician of thorough technique and interpretive sensitivity whose sound is intense and whose approach is nimble. She made a persuasive advocate for this concerto, even playing with extraordinary softness in some parts of the work, an effect that kept her audience interested.
Slatkin and the Detroit gave the work a passionate but controlled reading, and worked well with Gabetta, who occasionally referred to the sheet music. She handled the huge difficulties of the first movement, including aggressive chains of double and triple stops, with confidence and accuracy while staying alive enough to Barber’s lyric side to sing out the direct melodic passages.
In the Andante sostenuto, which featured some lovely oboe playing, Gabetta’s performance was heartfelt and beautiful, exemplifying the rapt, meditative mood Barber brought to so many of his formal slow movements. The exuberant but knotty finale contains much virtuoso display, and Gabetta added to her solid execution of those difficulties a rhythmic drive that gave the music a ferocious kind of interior energy.
Gabetta followed the concerto with a solo work by the contemporary Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks (b. 1946). Dolcissimo, which comes from Vasks’ 1978 Book for Cello, starts with whispers and astringent chords, then unfolds into a beautiful, melancholy lament in which the soloist is asked to sing wordlessly along with what she is playing. It was an exceptional effect: For a second, one didn’t know where this pretty, haunting voice was coming from. It was a fine piece of contemporary music-making, and welcome.
The Vasks closed the first half of the concert, which had begun with a boisterous, engaging rendition of Berlioz’s 1845 overture, Le Corsaire (Op. 21). The second half was devoted to the Symphony No. 2 (in E minor, Op. 27) of Rachmaninov.
The Rachmaninov can be an overlong experience in the concert hall, not just for its original length but because its very memorable melodies encourage orchestras and conductors to milk parts such as the slow movement for all they’re worth. But the best thing about this Rachmaninov was Slatkin’s feeling for its rhythmic life; here was a Rachmaninov that was lively and vivid rather than too plush for its own good.
If the brasses at the beginning of the symphony’s first movement were not as precisely in tune as they could have been, there was the compensation of the rich, full string sound and a lightness, a bounce, to the faster motifs that made it move. Good horn playing stood out in the second movement, and in the warm contrasting theme, the violins played with a judicious use of portamento, in keeping with the performance practice in place when the symphony was premiered in 1908.
Lovingly played clarinet, horn and violin solos in the slow movement added distinction to a well-played but not overly sentimental reading of this very familiar music, and the finale was notable for its swift tempo and rhythmic force, as well as an emphasis on coloristic effects such as a fierce passage for stopped horns.
Slatkin told the audience he wasn’t going to tell them the name of the encore on the grounds that it was too familiar, then led the Detroiters in a powerful version of the Farandole from Georges Bizet’s incidental music for Daudet’s L’Arlesienne.
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, joined by soloist Sol Gabetta, repeats this program at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Adrienne Arsht Center in downtown Miami. Tickets are $50-$125. Call 305-949-6722 or visit www.arshtcenter.org.
| 12 February 2010
The Amelia Piano Trio: Anthea Kreston, Rieko Aizawa and Jason Duckles.
Frederic Chopin did not write much chamber music, but it's fair to say that the two major works that qualify -- the early Piano Trio and the late Cello Sonata -- have been too often overlooked.
In this bicentenary year of Chopin's birth, the Connecticut-based Amelia Piano Trio is redressing that balance with performances of this fine work, and it was part of the bold, refreshingly innovative program the group brought to the Flagler Museum on Tuesday night.
The concert, which also featured works by Debussy, Shostakovich and Bernstein (as an encore), was well-conceived and grounded in a laudable spirit of exploration. Violinist Anthea Kreston told the sizable audience that she had read a letter Chopin wrote about the trio, in which he indicated he probably should have written it for viola instead of violin.
Kreston said she then tried both versions, violin and her own viola transcription, with the other members of the trio -- cellist Jason Duckles (Kreston's husband), and pianist Rieko Aizawa-- and discovered that viola came out the winner, and that's the way the Amelia does it.
And Kreston plays it beautifully; she has a commanding sound on the viola, and as promised, it meshes excellently with the sound of Duckles' cello. Using the viola didn't persuade me, ultimately, because much of the music of the trio needs the sharper cutting edge of the violin sound. The blend with the cello is too close, and the music loses too much distinction.
But it nevertheless was a wonderful performance of this music. Much of the first movement is dominated by the piano, and Aizawa did a fine job, from the crisp, precise way she played the jagged motif of the opening bars to the drive with which she performed its rolling figurations; it is essentially a study for the piano concertos the teenage Chopin was writing at the same time, and it came off beautifully.
The Scherzo second movement had a passionate intensity you don't often hear in performances of Chopin, with the three-beats-to-a-bar main theme growing in urgency as it rose up the scale. That sense of big drama continued into the first measures of the slow movement, followed by lovely, fervent playing from Kreston and Duckles.
The finale had a strong folk-dance lilt that made it move, and added to earlier evidence that playing this trio with an overall vigor rather than dreaminess is the way to make it succeed, and the Amelias did that expertly. One day it would be nice to hear this group's exciting reading of this trio with the violin instead.
The Chopin was one of four youthful trios on the program, and it was preceded by the lone piano trio of Claude Debussy, written during the summer of 1880, the year the composer turned 18. Debussy's had been lost for nearly 100 years before being reconstructed in the 1980s, and it is a graceful, charming work in every respect. It doesn't sound much like the mature composer (unlike Chopin's trio), but it is quite attractive and a good addition to chamber music programs.
Although there is much that is nearly salon-like about this trio, the Amelia declined to read it that way, with marvelous results. This was a forceful, committed interpretation, one that paid good attention to rhythm and marked it out, such as in main theme of the Russian-flavored second movement, played here with clarity and delicacy by Aizawa, who set an engaging mood of freshness for the whole work in the initial bars of the first movement.
Duckles gave his third-movement solo warmth and high emotion, and in the finale, the threesome blended a brisk tempo and a big-hearted reading of the movement's themes to end up with an impression of this work as a minor masterpiece: one with debts to Saint-Saëns and Massenet, but masterful nonetheless.
The concert opened with the first Shostakovich Piano Trio (in C minor, Op. 8), a one-movement work written when the composer was only 17, but already full of spiky harmonic language and a distinctive feeling of rapt melancholy. Quite different is the radiant second theme, played by the strings over murmuring chords in the piano.
The Amelias were particularly good at setting the hushed mood of the opening, with Aizawa putting up a background of quiet stasis as Duckles entered with the chromatic motif that binds the first section together. The ending, an over-the-top thundering of the second theme, is too obvious given the rest of the material, but the Amelias managed to make it persuasive.
For an encore, the trio played the second movement of Leonard Bernstein's Piano Trio, written when he was a 19-year-old student at Harvard College. It begins with a bluesy pizzicato theme that turns into a dance, and it's delightful. As with all the rest of the performances by this excellent ensemble, the playing was high-caliber and engaged, and it brought it audiences along confidently on its voyage of discovery.
The Intersection Trio, a piano trio, appears next in the Flagler Museum series with a concert on Tuesday, Feb. 23. Scheduled are the Mendelssohn Trio No. 2 (in C minor, Op. 66), arrangements of pieces by Elgar, Satie and Bizet, and solo works by Chopin, Sarasate and Cassadó. 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $60. Call 655-2833 or visit www.flaglermuseum.us.
| 11 February 2010
The Claremont Trio.
The Claremont Trio began in modest fashion 11 years ago at the Juilliard School, and since then the threesome has made well-received recordings and built up a strong following.
And the three players -- violinist Emily Bruskin and her twin sister, cellist Julia Bruskin, and the Canadian-born pianist Donna Kwong -- have shown some adventurousness in regard to repertory. They've recorded the second Mendelssohn trio (as well as the popular First), the first Shostakovich piano trio (not as well-known as No. 2), and on its most recent disc, the group offers an all-American program of music by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Leon Kirchner, Mason Bates and Paul Schoenfield (his frequently programmed Café Music).
For its concert Sunday afternoon in the Society of the Four Arts concert series, the Claremonts continued in that vein by offering an unusual choice, the Piano Trio in C major by the Catalan cellist and composer Gaspar Cassadó, to accompany two staples: the Piano Trio No. 1 (in E-flat, Op. 1, No. 1) of Beethoven, and the Piano Quartet (in E-flat, Op. 97) of Antonin Dvorak, with guest violist Beth Guterman.
The Beethoven trio that opened the concert, which was a last-minute substitution for the scheduled C minor trio from that set (Op. 1, No. 3), was notable for its clarity and springy feeling of goodwill. Kwong proved to be a player of formidable technique, tossing off the first movement's multitude of scales with precision and evenness. Cellist Julia Bruskin was the more impressive of the two sisters, with a strong, warm sound that communicated effectively.
The Claremonts work well together, as the second movement demonstrated, with Kwong offering a pure, clear take on the 18th-century coziness of the main theme, and the Bruskins answering with a more intense, forward-looking response, particularly in the minor-key middle after the recapitulation; here, Emily Bruskin opened up her sound, adding a nice touch of intensity to her solo moment.
The third movement Scherzo was clean, but could have used a little more Beethovenian drive. The finale, on the other hand, had the right sense of youthful high spirits, with Kwong again standing out in a part that was in any case written to showcase the skill of Beethoven himself.
The Cassadó trio, written in 1926 (and which was played that same weekend by the Eroica Trio in a Miami appearance), is a brightly colored work, full of big statements and rich harmonies. The opening movement, whose main theme is built on a steadily rising scale, has an attractive breadth and virility. It's not profound music, but the Claremonts clearly enjoyed playing it, and Julia Bruskin contributed a lovingly played solo after the recapitulation.
Violin and cello gave a good nervous intensity to the primary theme of the second movement, which stood out amid the slides and harmonics effects. And in the bravura closing movement, all three players delved with relish into Cassadó's flamboyant writing for an exciting ending.
After the intermission, the Claremonts were joined by Guterman, a busy chamber and orchestral musician who serves as principal violist of the Iris Orchestra in Germantown, Tenn., for the Dvorak. I could have used a more intense opening for this piece; it had power but not inner heat, though the rest of the movement was suitably forceful.
There was some more fine cello playing from Julia Bruskin for the beautiful slow movement, and in the middle, the three string players played with a nice sense of rise and fall at the tail end of one of their group statements. The third was the most tastefully and imaginatively played of all the movements, with a gratifying kinship with the dance in the way the musicians played the main theme, and especially in how Kwong gave her mazurka-style phrases the color and lilt of Chopin.
The string players sounded almost harsh at times in the fuller moments of the finale, but it had real forward energy, too, and while Kwong sometimes almost overwhelmed her colleagues, the Dvorak ended in propulsive, joyous fashion, and true crowd-pleasing style.
| 08 February 2010
Jazz trumpet legend Melton Mustafa.
By C.B. Hanif
Not equal are those who know and those who do not know about the annual Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival. Those in the know aren’t better than anyone else, of course, but they’re likely to share some more artful vibrations Friday and Saturday.
That’s when the 14th annual festival swings forth at the Lou Rawls Performing Arts Theater on the campus of Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens.
The long-running event perennially features internationally renowned artists led by Mustafa, Florida Memorial’s director of jazz studies — and himself a gifted trumpeter, arranger, composer, producer and bandleader.
This pure jazz event is simultaneously a treasured South Florida institution and one of our area’s best-kept secrets — even as it draws attention from as far away as Russia.
What sets it apart for many regulars is the performances by middle school, high school and college jazz bands that precede the culminating Saturday concert by the master artists.
Among those master musicians through the years have been many with whom the humble, unassuming Mustafa performed as a member of the Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Woody Herman Orchestras, or headliners with whom he has played at various international jazz festivals.
They include some of the most sought-after in the world: Clark Terry, Bobby Watson, Nathan Davis, Billy Cobham, George Cables, Jon Faddis, Benny Golson, Ralph MacDonald, Idris Muhammad, Kenny Drew Jr., Curtis Lundy, Randy Brecker, Patrice Rushen, Nestor Torres, Abraham Laboriel, Billy Taylor.
Some, such as James Moody and the late Grover Washington Jr., have been noted music educators themselves, and recipients of Florida Memorial honorary doctoral degrees.
“These are among the greatest jazz musicians in the world, barring none, and they have been gracious enough to assist us to help promote our jazz heritage,” Mustafa said regarding “the first art form to develop in America.”
The 2010 festival brings yet another lineup of artists known among those who know: legendary trumpeter/composer Charles Tolliver, drummer Victor Lewis, pianist Edward Simon, bassist Ed Howard, saxman Jesse Jones Jr.
“These people are icons as far as I’m concerned, the last of a breed of jazz musicians that we must take advantage of while they’re here," Mustafa said.
As always, then, a highlight for the aspiring students is the Friday master workshops, during which they and participating band directors soak up acumen from jazz’s greatest names.
Interested individuals also can register to participate in the workshops. For other fans who have longed to get an ear in, Mustafa announced a new riff as he headed to teach a jazz theory class: The sessions will be streamed live online by The Global Jazz Network, “to promote jazz education and help get what we’re doing here exposed internationally.”
Together, the students and masters have made South Florida’s singular pure jazz concert a veritable musical smorgasbord. Afro-Cuban masters have shared the stage with Russian jazz artists who sound as if they grew up in the jazz clubs of New York or the West Coast. Ellington and Sinatraesque standards have found new nuances with jazzy steel drums.
Some of the young players at a recent Mustafa festival. (Photo courtesy Melton Mustafa)
Yet it’s mainly to cheer on the kids that some fans — not only parents — seem to come out for each year’s Saturday concert.
Among this year’s announced student groups are the Dillard Performing Arts High School Jazz band, Broward College Jazz Ensemble, Michael M. Krop Senior High School Jazz Band and, as always, the Florida Memorial University Presidential Jazz Band, led by Mustafa.
The kids will get to strut their stuff onstage, to the crowd’s enthusiastic support, then sit back to watch the masters at work. Afterward the students often get to join audience members in chatting up the legends, perhaps picking up further tips.
Another feature that fans appreciate is the diversity of ethnic groups and eight-to-80s age range that contribute to the concert’s unique atmosphere.
It’s always an eclectic social scene at the sparkling and comfortable performance venue, with hip-hop jazz kids sharing space with forever-hip music veterans.
One might see young spouses holding hands, eyes closed, as exquisite sound fills the hall. Or a dignified elderly couple smiling at each other, perhaps at a shared memory evoked by a musician’s joke.
It’s where proud parents may hear an admirer’s congratulations during intermission: “That was your daughter playing that sax?”, or “your son working that upright bass?”
It’s that occasion when at least once a year one can count on catching up with a friend. Where one might hear a pleasantly surprised acquaintance proclaim, “Hey, I didn’t know you were into the music!” — and the response, “I’m into all good music.”
It is a perfect atmosphere for those who like to step out in their finest, just to be seen — or casual and laid-back to better enjoy the scene.
It’s all a testament to the ability of music, particularly this music, to bring people together and let each one swing, in his or her own improvisational way. To the long list that includes Wynton Marsalis, Art Blakey and others who have worked for the preservation and perpetuation of jazz music, add Mustafa — and some of the countless kids he, his guests and their audiences have inspired.
The mega performing-arts centers may feature the latest sensation. The lasting and the new continue to emanate from this remarkable South Florida event that is approaching the midpoint of its second decade.
As fans depart it each year, for home, for a cup of coffee or elsewhere to savor the evening, they can count on carrying a treasured, lasting vibration from that shared freedom space.
C.B. Hanif is a South Florida-based writer, editor, blogger and consultant at cbhanif.com.
The 14th Annual Melton Mustafa Jazz Festival takes place at the Lou Rawls Center for the Performing Arts, 15800 NW 42nd Ave., Miami Gardens, on the campus of Florida Memorial University. Master workshops are set for 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday; the concert is set for 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday. Concert tickets: $35, students $20, may be purchased online at www.meltonmustafa.com or call 305-623-3063. General seating.
Map and directions:
http://www.fmuniv.edu/home/resources-for/visitors/mapanddirections
Workshop schedule and registration: www.meltonmustafa.com or call (305) 623-8219. For more on the festival: www.msmartsinc.org.
For more on The Global Jazz Network: www.theglobaljazznetwork.com. For other information: 305-623-3063.
Melton Mustafa explains the art form to young players. (Photo courtesy Melton Mustafa)
| 06 February 2010
Pianist Gen Tomuro.
Like better-known programs of its ilk, the young International Certificate of Piano Artists program is a good way for rising stars of the classical piano to get expert advice, and for aficionados of the art to catch some rising stars.
Thursday night at the DeSantis Family Chapel on the campus of Palm Beach Atlantic University, the Palm Beach Symphony accompanied three ICPA hopefuls in canonic piano concerti by Mozart, Grieg and Liszt. The sense of competition that hung over the concert added an extra layer of excitement to the proceedings, but the playing was interesting enough by itself to make its official nature less of a focus.
All three players, young men in their early to mid-20s, know their way around a keyboard, and demonstrated impressive technique as well as interpretive breadth. These are still talents in development, and while none is yet a world-beater, each has room for growth and the makings of good careers.
First up Thursday was the youngest of the three, Gen Tomuro of Japan, who is only 20. He also had the best music of the night, Mozart's Concerto No. 9 (in E-flat, K. 271, Jenamy), an early work by this composer in which his mature greatness is clearly apparent. French pianist Philippe Entremont led a Palm Beach Symphony that sounded lovely in the DeSantis Chapel, light on its orchestral feet and supple interactors with the soloist.
Tomuro's most obvious asset as a pianist is the polished cleanliness of his technique, with not a missed note to be found in all those scales in the first movement, which was taken at a pace of considerable briskness. His Mozart had poise, too, as he gave each important theme shape and character.
A tight feeling of control was evident in the ravishing Andantino, even while Tomuro played it with beauty and sensitivity and the orchestra relished the movement's proto-Romanticism. The pianist's sparkling scale work made the finale glitter admirably as it sped along, though the slower middle section sounded a bit too disjunct from the rest of the movement.
What was missing here was not the basics or even the grand conception, but some more interpretive range. Tomuro is a fine player, but his musicianship needs more subtlety and drama, qualities that no doubt will be in greater supply as he gets older.
The second piece was the lone concerto by Edvard Grieg (in A minor, Op. 16), a work that has slipped from its status a major concerto, judging by its infrequent appearances these days on standard symphonic programs. It survives because its tunes are so distinctive and fresh, but it is otherwise redolent of a long-gone era in showy 19th-century pianism that stressed flash over fundament.
The Spaniard Antonio Galera López, born in 1984, was the soloist, with PBAU's David Jacobs at the conductor's helm in place of Entremont. López and the orchestra had several moments throughout the piece, starting with the very first A minor chord at the beginning, when soloist and ensemble were not together, and in a piece with big, obvious climaxes, that can be a hindrance.
López played the opening theme with a nice, dance-like spring, a quality of lightness that he showed in this concerto generally. His approach suited the more modest features of this piece, such as the second theme of the first movement, and his cadenza was played and paced well.
This pianist's command of delicacy was evident in the gentle way he played the falling figurations of the slow movement's solo portion, and the big recap of the main theme was strong and focused rather than epic. The finale didn't have the rough folk-dance feel those offbeat accents need, though, nor did the fast A major section toward the end have the right kind of lift and fire.
Lopez is a strong pianist with a sizable technique and good musicianship. He is not a player of the grand gesture, though, and so I would have preferred to hear him in a concerto better-matched to his abilities, something like the Beethoven Third, for example.
Shih-Wei Chen, a Taiwanese pianist born in 1985, closed the program with the Liszt First Concerto (in E-flat, S. 12), and did so in bravura style. Chen was the most complete pianist on Thursday's program, a player who is able to summon up cataracts of sound as well as streams of gossamer when needed.
In short, a good Liszt player. Chen knows how to seize the audience's attention, and that's the only way to play this shabby concerto, which like much Liszt constantly stops and restarts its forward motion. His first entrance was truly big, and he was able to roll out the passagework in the rest of the first section with breezy accuracy.
Chen had a good grasp of the night-music mood of the second section, and he played the third-section scherzo with sharply etched lightness and wit. His final section had vigor as well as swiftness, and in all, each of the sections had the requisite showmanship to make persuasive Liszt.
Again, it would have been preferable to hear Chen in a better piece of music, but he managed this concerto quite well, and like his two colleagues on Thursday's program, we can expect to hear good things from him in the future.
