Carnegie Hall: Daniil Trifonov and Kremerata Baltica Perform Chopin

As part of the Concertos Plus series I subscribe to every season at Carnegie Hall, pianist Daniil Trifonov joined with the Kremerata Baltica on Wednesday evening to perform an all-Chopin program in arrangements by several different composers.

The program opened with the Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" from Mozart's Don Giovanni, Op. 2 (1824) as arranged for piano and chamber orchestra by Andrei Pushkarev.  The work is best known for having elicited from Schumann the famous remark "Hats off, gentlemen! A genius!", but it was his future wife Clara, a virtuoso pianist, who made the most interesting comment on the piece:

"Chopin's Variations Op. 2, which I learned in eight days, is the hardest piece I have ever seen or played till now. This original, brilliant composition is still so little known that almost every pianist and teacher considers it incomprehensible and impossible to play."

Though this was Chopin's first orchestral work, he later preferred to perform the piece without accompaniment.  He showed good sense in so doing.  The orchestra's role is perfunctory and often seems more an encumbrance than anything else.  The best passages are those where the piano plays unaccompanied.

The next work was the Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 8 (1828-1829) in whose performance the pianist was joined by violinist Gidon Kremer and cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė.  This early work is something of an anomaly in the composer's oeuvre that seems far removed from the Romantic miniatures for solo piano that would characterize his later work and win him fame.  At the time the trio was completed Chopin was still a student in Warsaw, a pupil of the composer Józef Elsner, and the work was at least partly in the nature of an assignment.  Its structure and tone are Classical rather than Romantic and hearken back to Beethoven (as well as Hummel).  Some critics have even heard in the adagio sostenuto the influence of Beethoven's Sonata No. 5 in C minor.  Nevertheless, the tone of the work, particularly in the slow movement, is unabashedly Romantic, an indication that even at this early point in his career Chopin was fully able to imbue his music with the force of his personality.  The great problem with the piece is Chopin's lack of experience in composing for strings.  Even though he had assistance in writing those parts, there is never any of the interplay among the strings and piano that one finds in the work of more experienced chamber music composers.   Nevertheless, the work was well received at its premiere.  In his usual hyperbolic style, Schumann wrote of it: "Is it not as noble as one could possibly imagine? Dreamier than any poet has ever sung?"

After intermisson, the musicians returned to perform the Mazurka in A minor, Op. 17, No. 4 (1832-1833) as arranged for chamber orchestra by Victor Kissine.  In contrast to the waltzes or nocturnes, the mazurkas, like the composer himself, were native to Poland and emblematic of its culture.  That the four such pieces comprising the Op. 17 were composed shortly after Chopin arrived in Paris is indicative of the homesickness he felt for his homeland.  Certainly this particular mazurka was filled with a sense of nostalgia and a pervasive mood of melancholy.  It seemed a shame to hear it performed in an orchestral version, however, when so competent a pianist as Mr. Trifonov was available to perform the piece in its original form.

The program concluded with the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11 (1830) as arranged for chamber orchestra by Yevgeny Sharlat.  With the two piano concerti (the E minor was actually the second composed but the first to be published) one comes to the major problem in Chopin's career as a composer.  While a brilliant pianist and unsurpassed in writing miniatures for solo piano, Chopin was unable to effectively compose for orchestra or for any instrument, including voice, other than his own.  His genius lay rather in creating moods within very brief piano pieces, too brief in fact to allow for any development of musical ideas.  Unlike such great pianists as Mozart and Beethoven, Chopin never attempted a symphony or for that matter any orchestral works other than his two concerti.  As one listens to the Op. 11 it what immediately becomes evident is the awkwardness of the orchestration.  One has the strong sense throughout the work that Chopin would have been glad to have dispensed with the orchestra altogether and to have the piano play alone.  Chopin was here complying with a tradition that held it was de rigueur for pianist composers to write their own concerti - earlier this season I heard Trifonov perform his own 2014 concerto with the Mariinsky Orchestra - but he acceded to custom without success.  As for the arrangement by Yevgeny Sharlat, I didn't think it added anything noteworthy to the original score and am not really sure why it was even attempted.

Daniil Trifonov certainly has an impressive technique - and Chopin was the perfect composer with which to showcase his talents - but I do not yet consider him a great pianist.  Still, this was a highly entertaining performance that drew a blissful response from the audience.  And the musicianship was undeniably on a very high level; Mr. Trifonov was ably supported by Mr. Kremer and the excellent Kremerata Baltica throughout the evening.  I do think a bit more diversity in the program, however, would have been most helpful.  Chopin's early works, no matter how much promise they may show, are hardly masterpieces deserving the attention they received here.  And, with the exception of the piano trio, these aren't even Chopin's original works but rather arrangements by other composers.

Juilliard Chamber Music: Beethoven, Arensky, Mozart and Smetana

On Sunday afternoon I went to Juilliard's Morse Hall to hear one of the four recitals given that day.  I hadn't known the program in advance and was happily surprised to find so many interesting works were to be performed.

The recital began with Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 7 in C minor, Op. 30, No.2 (1801-1802).   The violinist was Christine Wu and the pianist Rixiang Huang; their coaches were Julian Martin and Joel Smirnoff.  I had only just heard this same sonata performed a week before at another Juilliard recital and have already posted my thoughts on the music.  As I listened a second time I was once again impressed with the restless energy of the piano part.  It seemed at times in the opening movement that Beethoven could barely hold himself in check as the piano drove relentlessly forward.

The next work was Anton Arensky's Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 32 (1894).  It was performed by Wei Zhu, violin, Jonathan Lien, cello, and Yilun Xu, piano; they were coached by Lara Lev and Jerome Lowenthal.  The Arensky chamber work that's most often performed is the String Quartet No. 2, Op. 35, made famous by the Tchaikovsky variations in the second movement; but the present trio reveals Arensky as a talented composer whose other chamber pieces also deserve a hearing.  Like the quartet, the trio is steeped in Russian Romanticism, an influence made all the more apparent by the elegiac character of both pieces.  While the quartet was a memorial to Tchaikovsky, the trio was dedicated to the memory of Karl Davydov, a friend of both Arensky and Tchaikovsky and a noted cello virtuoso, a fact that may account for the prominence given the cello part throughout the work.  Despite its  elegiac character, however, this is not by any means a dark work.  It contains several beautiful melodies - one haunting theme given the piano in the third movement seems almost a nursery tune - and the scherzo returns to its original meaning of a lighthearted joke with playful outbursts that contrast strongly with the slow movement that follows.

After a brief intermission, the recital resumed with a performance of Mozart's Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat major, K. 452 (1784).  The musicians were Lucian Avalon, oboe, Ning Zhang, clarinet, Soo Yeon Lee, bassoon, Lee Cyphers, horn, and Jun Hwi Cho, piano; the coaches were William Short and Matti Raekallio.  The work is famous on two counts - first for having been the inspiration for Beethoven's Op. 16 that used the same key and instrumentation and secondly for having been, in the composer's own words to his father, "the best thing I have so far written in my life."  One has to take this description with a grain of salt.  After all, no matter how highly he regarded the work, Mozart never again wrote for this combination of instruments.  While the quintet is certainly pleasant to hear and very competently written, it is really a divertimento, even if of the highest quality.  If anything, it is even a bit off balance in the heavy weight given the piano part.  This is understandable, however, as Mozart himself played the piano part at a public concert only two days after the piece had been completed.

The program closed with Bedřich Smetana's String Quartet No. 1 in E minor (1876) titled "From My Life."  The work was performed by In Ae Lee and Yutsuki Beppu, violins, Erin Pitts, viola, and Ayoun Alexandra Kim, cello; the four were coached by Natasha Brofsky and Joseph Lin.  This was actually the most intriguing piece performed on Sunday afternoon.  Smetana's works, with the exception of the Die Moldau section from Má vlast, are rarely performed today even though his operas were held in high regard by such conductors as his fellow Bohemian Mahler.  (Like Mahler, Smetana had had a troubled career as a conductor during which he was persecuted unmercifully.)  Certainly Smetana's Piano Trio in G minor, written after the death of his eldest daughter Bedriska, is one of the most moving works in the chamber repertoire.  The present quartet, composed some twenty years later, is no less personal.  By the time he came to write it Smetana was suffering from the approach of total deafness, the worst affliction that can befall a composer, but in spite of this he managed to somehow continue composing.  The quartet reflects these tribulations in a thoroughly Romantic manner that is deliberately autobiographical to the extent that Smetana described the work as a "tone picture of my life."  The most moving section is the finale.  Smetana wrote: "The long, insistent note in the finale...is the fateful ringing in my ears of the high-pitched tones which, in 1874, announced the beginning of my deafness."

Japan Society: Hasegawa Tōhaku

I went on Friday for the second time to the Japan Society on East 47th Street to see the current exhibit of works, most of them magnificent pairs of folding screens, by Hasegawa Tōhaku, an artist of the Momoyama period.  The exhibit of Japanese art, entitled A Giant Leap: The Transformation of Hasegawa Tōhaku, was only one of several I've viewed in past weeks but was certainly among the most rewarding.

One of the most fascninating aspects of Hasegawa's life was the mystery surrounding his true identity.  Although he was the period's most significant painter following the death of his chief rival Kanō Eitoku, very little was known of his early life.  It was only in 1964 that art historian Tsugiyoshi Doi, then director of the Kyoto National Museum, speculated that Hasegawa might in fact be the same individual as Hasegawa Nobuharu, a much less renowned painter of the same era who specialized in Buddhist iconography.  There were many objections to this hypothesis, however, as there were strong stylistic differences between the two artists.  Most telling was the fact that while Tōhaku was a master at painting on gilded surfaces, an extremely difficult process, there were no known examples by Nobuharu that involved a similar use of this technique.  The "missing link," at least according to documentation provided at the exhibit, is the screen Flowers and Birds of Spring and Summer (ca. 1580) that was only definitively attributed to Nobuharu in 2009.  This dazzling work is the centerpiece of the current exhibit and the basis for its title.

The Momoyama period was one of the most tumultuous in Japanese history as various warlords vied for control of the country; it only ended in 1600 with the decisive Battle of Sekigahara that saw the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate and the beginning of the Edo period.  None of this turmoil, however, is evident in the works of Hasegawa.  His works instead are almost entirely devoted to scenes of nature.  Indeed, his forte may be his highly stylized treatment of trees.  This is readily apparent in the first work one encounters upon entering the exhibit, Pine Grove (c. 1595).  Like the majority of works on view, Pine Grove consists of a pair of six-panel folding screens that when placed end to end extend over twenty feet in length.  The large monochromatic screens take up the entire length of a gallery and are absolutely mesmerizing.  The subject itself couldn't be simpler - a stand of pine trees partially enshrouded in fog.  So artfully has the screen been painted that as one sits and contemplates the ghostly scene it seems to the viewer that trees previously hidden by the mist gradually make themselves apparent.  It's an astonishing illusion.  One of the Society's guides explained to me that the work had been completed shortly after the death of the artist's son.  One can sense the intense emotion behind this tranquil scene as one's eyes strain to penetrate the fog and see the hidden world beyond it.

Another monochromatic work depicts Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers.  The work clearly shows Chinese influences, most especially in the stylization of the mountains at the extreme left of the screen.  As in other works, large portions of the scene have not been painted in but rather left blank to suggest to the viewer a mist covered landscape.  This technique that can be traced back at least as far as Ma Yuan's "one-corner school" of painting in the Southern Song dyansty and is a distinguishing characteristic of Asian painting; it presents a contrast to Western styles in which every inch of the canvas is meticulously painted over in detail.

Herons on Willow, Crows on Pine is yet another example of Hasegawa's monochromatic technique.  At the far left of one set of screens a pair of white herons perch gracefully on willow branches while on the far right of the accompanying set of screens a pair of black crows are shown on the branches of the pine.  The contrast between the birds' coloring and character creates an exceptionally balanced composition.

Also in monochrome are the set of folding screens comprising Cranes and Bamboo.  As soon as I saw this work I recognized the crane on the left hand panel.  It's an almost exact duplicate of the left hand panel of the Kuan Yin triptych by the Chinese artist Mu'chi (Mokkei), one of the finest painters of the Southern Song dynasty.  The documentation accompanying the exhibit suggests that Hasegawa had access to Mu'chi's painting; that certainly seems likely considering the similarity in iconography.  I've always had the highest regard for the Kuan Yin triptych ever since having seen a reproduction many years ago in D.T. Suzuki's Zen and Japanese Culture and it was deeply moving to see that it had also served as a source of inspiration for so great an artist as Hasegawa.

In another gallery were the screens comprising Willows in Four Seasons, a subtly colored study of the trees viewed from summer on the right to winter on the left.  This is an extremley understated work and yet I could not help but feel I was seeing a panorama of the seasons spread out before me.

The pieces I most enjoyed viewing at the exhibit were the brightly colored screens of Willow Bridge wherein a golden bridge surrounded by willows and with a water wheel at one end extends over the Uji River in Kyoto.  This was a favorite subject of Momoyama artists.  Here the twisting trunks of the willows, almost black against the bright gold background, become design elements that snake through the composition and offset the regularly curved diagonal formed by the bridge itself.  The bridge was a famous scenic spot in Kyoto as early as the eighth century when it was first described in the poetry of the Man'yōshū ("Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves"), and its depiction here irresistably brings to mind the world of Genji monogatari during the Heian period.

The exhibit is being shown in two rotations.  The first ended on April 8th while the second continues through May 6, 2018.  Some of the works described above were shown in the first rotation and have since been returned to Japan where they are considered National Treasures.

Juilliard Chamber Music: Dvořák

One of the final performances in this season's Wednesdays at One series at Alice Tully Hall was the occasion for the world premieres of two chamber works that had recently won prestigious awards.  The first was Str1ng Quart3t in More than 2 parts.by Joshua A. Getman that was the winner of the 2016 Gena Raps String Quartet Prize; it was performed by the Argus Quartet consisting of Clara Kim and Jason Issokson, violins, Dana Kelley, viola, and Joann Whang, cello.  The second work was Variations Between the Creases for Piano Quartet by Theo Chandler that was the winner of the 2017 Gena Raps Piano Chamber Music Prize; it was performed by an ensemble consisting of Amelia Dietrich, violin, Lauren Siess, viola, Shangwen Jeff Liao, cello, and Rachel Breen, piano.  Both works were very accomplished; the piano quartet in particular was well structured and contained a wealth of musical ideas. 

The third and final work was the Piano Trio No. 4 in E minor, Op. 90 (1891), nicknamed the "Dumky" for the Slavic musical form that appears throughout the work.  It was performed by the Noree Piano Trio consisting of Lukas Stepp, violin, Yi Qun Xu, cello, and Jeong Yoon Lee, piano.  If in the No. 3 Dvořák had appeared to vacillate between the Bohemian music that had inspired his earliest efforts and the Classical Romanticism of Brahms, he had by the time the No. 4 came to be composed some eight years later managed to reconcile the two.  In the No. 4, Dvořák can be seen returning to his roots with this unapologetic celebration of the dumka and by extension the entire Slavic folk tradition.  The dumka itself is characterized by wild swings between despair and exuberance, and Dvořák made full use of its bipolar nature in all six movements of the trio.  As the composer phrased it:

"It will be both happy and sad. In some places it will be like a melancholic song, elsewhere like a merry dance; but, all told, the style will be lighter or, if I might put it another way, more popular, in short, so that it will appeal to both higher and lower echelons."

And Dvořák certainly did succeed in creating here one of his most popular works.  Its general character is lighthearted and it seems as if a weight had been lifted from the composer's shoulders as he prepared to embark on his journey to New York.  More importantly, in this final piano trio he reaffirmed his belief in the value of folk sources, an interest he would pursue further in the music he wrote in America.

Mannes Orchestra Performs Wagner, Hindemith and Stravinsky

On Monday evening I went to Alice Tully Hall to hear the Mannes Orchestra, under the baton of its Music director David Hayes perform one of the most ambitious programs I've encountered this season.  Two of the works performed, the first and the last, can rightfully be said to have been turning points in the history of Western music.

The concert opened with the Prelude and Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (1857-1859).  After having just heard last week Act II of the opera performed in concert at Carnegie Hall, I now had an opportunity to hear the Prelude that opens Act I complete with its famous "Tristan chord" as well as the Act III Liebestod the concludes the opera.

The next work was the piece I had really come to hear, the Konzertmusik for Wind Orchestra, Op. 41 (1926) by Paul Hindemith.  When one thinks of German music in the 1920's the works that first come to mind are those of Schoenberg and other members of the Second Viennese School. And in 1924, in fact, Schoenberg had completed his own Wind Quintet, Op. 26 that was among the first works to utilize the twelve-tone system.  The problem, however, at least as far as Hindemith was concerned, was that such works had nothing to do with popular German culture but were almost exclusively the province of musicologists.  Hindemith's great interest, in contrast, was in Gebrauchsmusik, that is, music that was accessible to the general public and could easily be performed by amateurs.  He saw his great opportunity to further the cause of such music in the 1926 Donaueschingen Festival on whose committee he served; he accordingly issued invitations to composers to submit works of this type for performance while at the same time writing for it his own Op. 41.  In the event, the Festival failed in its aims when none of the amateur wind musicians who had been invited decided to take part.  It was probably just as well since the pieces that had been written for them, including Hindemth's own, ironically proved too advanced for the skills of amateurs.  The various composers' efforts were not entirely in vain, however, for when they emigrated to the US in the 1930's while fleeing the Nazis, they found American wind orchestras that were much more receptive to their compositions than had been the amateur ensembles in Germany for which these pieces had originally been written.

After intermission the musicians returned onstage to perform Stravinsky's Le sacre du printemps (1913).   So fixed a place in the repertoire has this monumental work now attained that it's difficult to believe it could once have been as controversial as its history suggests.  Everyone knows the story of the infamous premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées that ended in a riot, though there were those who claimed at the time that this was a response to Nijinsky's choreography rather than Stravinsky's music.  (Years ago I saw a recreation of the original production staged by the Joffrey Ballet and thought it magnificent.)  What can't be denied, however, is that this was one of the earliest triumphs of modernism no matter that it had its roots firmly in the Russian folk tradition.  Even now, despite its familiarity, there is something deeply unsettling in the savage rhythms that burst out of nowhere and challenge the sensibilities of the audience.  There are very few other works in the repertoire so gripping as this.

Juilliard Chamber Music: Schubert and Beethoven

On Sunday afternoon I went to Juilliard's Morse Hall to hear the first half of a chamber music recital featuring works by Schubert and Beethoven.

The recital opened with Schubert's Fantasie in F minor for Piano Four Hands, D. 940 (1828) performed by Chenchun Ma and Max YiLong Ma.  I've always thought Schubert the greatest composer for the piano, even more so than Beethoven, and this fantasie, along with the late sonatas one of his last works for the instrument, contains some of his most inspired writing.  There is something incredibly poignant in Schubert's final year of life.  He was fully conscious of his gifts, enough to recognize in himself the true successor to Beethoven, and yet he could only look back on a life filled with poverty and disappointment made all the more bitter by the hideous disease that was slowly killing him.  One wonders then at his state of mind when he dedicated the fantasie to his pupil Karoline Esterházy with whom he no doubt intended one day to perform the piece.  (In the event, Schubert eventually premiered the work with fellow composer Franz Lachner.)  It's after all well known that Schubert was infatuated with the youngest daughter of the aristocratic Esterházy family.  According to one source, Karoline once asked him why he did not dedicate one of his compositions to her. "What would be the use?" he said. "All that I do is dedicated to you."  If F minor is truly the key of hopeless love, it was never more so than here.  Not only was Schubert too poor and of too common birth to ever aspire to the hand of an aristocrat, but his terrible disease, whose name even today one hesitates to speak in polite society, put out of reach even the lowest born woman and effectively condemned him to die alone.  Fantasies are wonderful things if there is some hope, however remote, to keep them afloat, but for Schubert there wasn't even that.  The dedication is not so much wistful as ironic, a bitter acknowledgment by the composer that all that remained for him now was death.

The second work was Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 7 in C minor, Op. 30, No. 2 (1801-1802) performed by Julia Glenn, violin, and Angie Zhang, piano.  This is one of those pivotal works - like the B-flat major String Quartet, Op. 18, No. 6 - in which the composer can be seen readying himself for the move from his early Classical style to the Romanticism of his middle period.  Written at roughly the same time as  the famous Heiligenstadt Testament, the sonata clearly reflects the torments of a soul who through the impending loss of his hearing stands to lose everything that held any meaning for him.  As such, the work is filled with drama and is at times almost giddy in its violent mood swings.  This can be heard immediately in the opening movement whose tightly coiled first theme expresses both defiance and despair that in the second movement, marked adagio cantabile, turns into a prayer.  The brisk third movement scherzo seems to belong to another work altogether as if Beethoven had been so distracted by his emotions that he momentarily lost sight of what he was about.  Then in the final movement he recollects himself and returns with a vengeance to the dramatic passion of the first movement.  Throughout the sonata the piano is given as full a part as the violin and propels the music forward with restless energy.  Beethoven is here not only moving in a new direction but developing a new vocabulary with which to give voice to the works that were to come.

Met Opera: Plácido Domingo Sings in Luisa Miller

On Saturday afternoon I wen tto the Met Opera to hear one of Verdi's early operas, Luisa Miller, the 1849 work based on an eighteenth century play Kabale und Liebe ("Intrigue and Love") by Friedrich Schiller.

This was the first time I'd ever seen this opera, but that's not to say it's infrequently performed.  In fact, it's considered one of the most significant of Verdi's early career and according to many musicologists marked the beginning of his middle period when he finally achieved the international fame he so well deserved.  Not that the opera's history was an easy one.  It only came to be written after the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples refused to release Verdi from a contract that had been signed without his consent by his publisher Ricordi.  There followed a series of byzantine intrigues, themselves worthy of an opera, in which the theater threatened to sue the librettist, Salvadore Cammarano, with breach of contract for failure to deliver a finished text.  When Verdi, too honorable to desert his associate, finally capitulated he then found his first choice of subject, L'assedio di Firenze ("The Siege of Florence"), was off limits because it was too politically sensitive for the censors' tastes.  It was only then that the choice fell on Schiller's play that in its turn also required substantive changes in order to avoid the wrath of the censors.  In the end this proved an advantage as it allowed composer and librettist to focus on the love story between  Luisa and Rodolfo to the exclusion of the political elements that had formed the crux of Schiller's play.

As one reads the history of Luisa Miller, one is impressed by the manner in which Verdi sought to accommodate Cammarano.  Certainly, at least as outlined in the Met's program notes, he was far from the imperious composer one usually associates with Italian opera.  The description furnished is worth quoting as it provides a great deal of insight into the working arrangements between composer and librettist:

"Cammarano envisioned an aria for Luisa, a solo quartet, and an aria for Rodolfo, while Verdi wanted a duet for Luisa and Wurm, another for Wurm and Walter, the quartet, an aria for Rodolfo, and 'then something else well suited for the end of an act.' ... After the usual complex negotiations were done, the two men together provided the second act with a chorus; a scena and aria ('Tu puniscimi, o Signore') for Luisa; a recitative, scena, and duet for Walter and Wurm ('L’alto retaggio non ho bramato'); a quartet for Luisa, Federica, Walter, and Wurm ('Presentarti alla Duchessa'); and a scena and aria for Rodolfo ('Quando le sere al placido')."

This season's revival of Luisa Miller - the first in more than ten years - was originally to have been conducted by James Levine.  Following his summary ouster as Music Director Emeritus in December, the thankless task of replacing him was given to Bertrand de Billy, currently chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.  It was in my opinion an unfortunate choice.

In contrast to the conducting, the singing was uniformly excellent.  Soprano Sonya Yoncheva in the title role and tenor Piotr Beczała as Rodolfo displayed real chemistry together.  The latter's Act II aria Quando le sere al placido was one of the performance's high points while Yoncheva's Act III duet with her father La figlia, vedi, pentita was truly touching.  The real star of the afternoon, however was Plácido Domingo in the role of Luisa's father in yet another of his late career performances as a bartione (though he's still listed as a tenor in the program notes).  This true opera superstar had such a commanding presence that he effortlessly stole every scene in which he appeared.

The 2001 production by Elijah Moshinsky was a dingy monochromatic affair.  Why it was found necessary to move the setting from the grandeur of the Tyrolean Alps to the squalor of early Industrial Age England is beyond me.