Webern Saves Australia!

  

 The Australian Chamber Orchestra in its barest bones (string quintet, piano, percussion and guest guitarists Brian Ritchie and Jim Moginie) breezed through Le Poisson Rouge in Manhattan’s West Village last week - one stop on its five-city tour of North America. There was much that was disappointing in this hipster hodgepodge program, and it is sad to say that most of the blame rests on the ACO’s leader, arranger and brain, Richard Tognetti.

Gesualdo with Radiohead; Kurt Cobain with Webern? Are such pairings still considered cutting edge? The overall impression was provincial, but how thankful we are in this city that LPR has a full bar.

The Angel’s Dark Lessons

   

 Ryland Angel, countertenor, was the standout of the NYC-based vocal group TEи∃T's March 15^th concert. In residence at St. Ignatius Church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, they featured an artist of uncommon gravity and purity in Mr. Angel. In an austere Lenten program anchored around chapters from Charpentier and Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres, this program was no walk in the park. Mr. Angel illuminated the profound truths chosen by the artistic director, Jolle Greenleaf, in the program notes:

 “I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest.”   ~Dalai Lama

 “What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle.”  ~Rumi

 “Truly, it is in darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow then this light is nearest to all of us.”  ~Meister Eckhart

    Of these six serious musicians, Mr. Angel embodied these dichotomies with a somber rapture, balancing divine anguish with earthly hope stayed with an unwavering commitment to the highest standards of musical line, prosody, pitch and diction. His contribution to the last piece, Charpentier’s Psaume 50 Miserere, coalesced the full ensemble in a crowning accomplishment. His final tone was a rare gift, a sound hollow yet profoundly chthonic.

Home Bass

The prodigiously talented 14-year-old double bassist William McGregor was presented over the weekend by Juilliard’s Pre-College Division in Paul Hall. He has the sunny disposition and blond locks of a Californian surfer dude and the charisma of a young Jim Morrison. These characteristics are well served by his amazingly natural fluid technique and practically flawless intonation and harmonics. 

His program included solo Bach, the Vanhal Concerto and Williams' Theme from Schindler’s List, which had a singing wistfulness, never tortured or pompous. He concluded with Bottesini’s Fantasy on La Somnambula that was so deft as to be tongue in cheek. 

Though William sounds like a musician twenty years older, there is no affectation or portentousness. Infectious is the joy he takes in his own remarkable accomplishments. 

Albert Laszlo is his teacher. 

Remarkable in a scarring way was the accompanist, yours truly, Miss Colostomy Bag. Eduard Laurel’s orchestral tuttis, sight-read with flagrant shame, were eye-poppingly horrific. They brought to mind the desperate kicking of a deer just crashed through a windshield. Bless the soloist for remaining utterly unfazed. 

William McGregor is a virtuoso to watch. Look out, Gary Carr.

24 In A Drawer

In 27 Pieces, The Hilary Hahn Encores’ program notes proclaim, “If you are captivated by a certain piece, you can acquire the score and study its architecture. If you are interested in commissioning, consider sponsoring a composer you like, be it someone close to you or someone you have always admired.” Why, yes.

Then she goes on to say: “Mesmerized… I listened for hours…Uncovering works …was intoxicating… fueled by tea and chocolates. A newly written work is like exploring a mysterious building with no apparent doors… once inside, I wander around, puzzling where I fit.”

     I sincerely hope that admirers of Hilary Hahn won’t upset themselves by reading further.

This compilation speaks volumes of Ms. Hahn’s acumen (not musical) in the promotion of her reputation at the expense of her sponsors and these many talented composers.

   Of these 27 short and aspiring chestnuts, let’s hazard that three might survive this ambitious project.  A couple are in the form of perpetual motion; monochromatic, yet impressive in ways brilliant and self-apparent. Jennifer Higdon’s Echo Dash is engagingly compelling with dry charm and wry wit. David Lang ’s light moving is gentle and atmospheric, admirable in its transparent construction and lack of pretension. In The Angry Birds of Kauai by Jeff Myers, if the octatonic harmonies are predictable, this character piece is handled masterfully, though the performance could have been more robust.

Ohlsson Warms the Cold, the Tired, the Jaded

On a cold and sunless Sunday February afternoon in New York, pianist Garrick Ohlsson offered warm solace in Carnegie Hall where one could, like cozying up to a comfortably appointed fireplace, dwell without hurry on the nuances of masterpieces. In this beautifully proportioned program, the classical first half set up Mr. Ohlsson’s greatest strengths in the impressionist and romantic works of the second.

   After intermission, in three pieces of Charles Griffes, whose music this artist champions, The Fountain of Acqua Paolo (1916) established this musician’s epicurean nature with lush, plush accompaniments that supported deeply felt melodies, which he ever evolved in shape. This afternoon‘s Scherzo of 1913 was a richer, more commanding version than on the definitive recording of Griffes’ complete piano music released by Mr. Ohlsson nearly a year ago. Live, his scintillating scales thrilled, like the discovery of one’s youthful sexuality. Earning the respect of this difficult matinée audience, The White Peacock (1915,) though never lascivious, ravished the listeners to silence, and reduced this one to tears of pleasure, right to its end’s time-stopping ambiguous tri-tone resolution.

The Great Schick and His Schticks

 

The solo percussionist Steven Schick, who has carved out a career as a brilliant champion of 20th and 21st century avant garde repertoire gave an impressive concert of the instruments’ staples Thursday last at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, the first of  three. Nearly sold out, this was a testament to his charisma and his spiritual and socially responsible leanings. He began each of the eight selections with a Buddhist tashi delek bow towards good fortune, and for an encore recited Wendell Berry’s poem Manifesto:The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, which antagonistic people might consider socialist.

With so many young people and doubtless many percussion students in the audience, he is clearly an inspiration, a worthy mentor. As an admitted geek, how can I more than respect, but love this musician for his admission that he transcribed Varèse’s Ionisation by hand to know it better? 

Whang Bang No Thank You Lang²

Andreas Ottensamer, the recently appointed principal clarinetist of the tremendous Berlin Philharmonic and his esteemed colleague Wenzel Fuchs play a sublime introduction to Prokofieff’s Third Piano Concerto. Their playing only grows more mythic in one’s memory.

Next, the strings with a glorious crescendo buoyantly hustle in the superstar of the galaxy, THE pianist of the moment, in this sumptuously produced release from Sony, coupled with Bartok’s Second Concerto. Enter stage right Lang Lang, striding in wearing spandex and sneakers; or, is he in flight, suspended by invisible wires?

   From the opening bars, what detracts from his bustling athleticism
is his impetuous rhythm and erratic phrasing, his fast notes clumped together like locusts on the last ear of corn. Soon enough, Mr. Lang’s signature becomes apparent: willful, and comprehensible not as the efforts of an adolescent, but as a young child disciplined enough to control its tantrums. Perhaps this explains Sir Simon Rattle’s brittle, though enthusiastic, partnership.

   It could be argued that Lang Lang has a technique of some brilliance, but this chronicler finds it a disgrace to his trainers and handlers that at this stage of his prodigious career he will likely continue with barely a nod
to the decorum, civility, and propriety of this art we call fine, much less delve into matters of taste, tradition or aesthetics. 

The Fondest Adieu; or, À Bientôt, but not Goodbye.

 Glenn Dicterow, leaving the New York Philharmonic's concertmaster position 
after 34 years and thousands of performances, was
presented jointly by his orchestra and the Juilliard School in a
celebratory send-off recital (inappropriately promoted as a
‘farewell') in Alice Tully Hall Sunday evening. In one of Mr. Dicterow’s CDs the liner notes open with these beautiful sentences from Walter Piston.

   “Playing in an orchestra, the individual allows himself to be
absorbed in the mass. In chamber music performance, the musician
retains his individuality while sharing it on an equal basis with his
associates. The soloist is properly assertive and aggressive, striving
to project the music with all the vigor and authority at his command.”

   How could the composer so presciently predict our complete musician?

Letter from the Editor

Dear Fans and Friends of CrackCritic.com,

As you might have noticed, CrackCritic has been on a temporary hiatus - this has mostly been thanks to an assault some weeks ago. 

Eduard Laurel was greeted at an East Side diner with a homophobic slur by a table of 'bridge and tunnel' people. He left shortly thereafter and was knocked to the ground by one of them who was outside. There followed a hospital visit, police reports, and trauma both physical and mental, but I am pleased to inform you that he is on the mend, and you can look forward to new reviews of music both live and recorded very soon now. 

CrackCritic would like to wish you all a fortunate and safe 2014.

~ Editor