Nice Guys, and They Can Play

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The New York Sun

There is a lot of great clarinet music, and it’s a pity we don’t hear it more often. The recital is not faring well these days. Chamber music, yes – we are awash in chamber music (and often those concerts include a clarinet). But recitals are hurting, and clarinet recitals are almost as few as clarinetists who have solo careers.


One of those players is Richard Stoltzman, and he gave a recital at the Metropolitan Museum on Friday night. He had a rather fancy accompanist, or “collaborative artist,” as people like to say now: the famed pianist Emanuel Ax. They played an interesting program, which had Debussy and Brahms on the first half, and three Americans on the second. (Four, if you count the composer of the encore.)


The evening began with Debussy’s “Premiere rapsodie,” written to examine clarinet scholars at the Paris Conservatory. Is there a “Seconde rapsodie”? Not as far as I know, but it’s a nice title anyway.


Did Mr. Stoltzman pass the exam? Of course. He has a terrific technique, and ample musicality. His playing is as expressive as his face (which is expressive indeed). He made subtle sounds, if not especially beautiful sounds. Beauty of sound is not this clarinetist’s specialty. And some of Debussy’s phrases, it’s true, cry out for a more beautiful, less whiny sound.


Mr. Ax played smoothly and sometimes shimmeringly, showing real French refinement. He also showed a real collaborative spirit – a spirit of pairing up. He is a congenial chamber musician, Mr. Ax.


Next he played Debussy’s “Estampes” – Mr. Ax, that is. I have always been skeptical of this, a solo turn for pianists in recitals like this. You have a well-known pianist accompany the evening’s soloist – so you have him step out into the spotlight, without the principal. Richard Goode does this in recitals with the soprano Dawn Upshaw.


Is there anything wrong with a clarinet recital by Richard Stoltzman, pure and simple? Is it so dishonorable to pair up with him? It’s not as though New Yorkers don’t have enough opportunities to hear Emanuel Ax all by his lonesome.


In any case, Mr. Ax played “Estampes” – three marvelous pieces – and he played them decently.He didn’t play them specially, he didn’t play them badly.There was nothing to extol, nothing particularly to condemn. But one might criticize …


Where was the joy in “Soiree dans Grenade”? Also, there is far more color, more flavor, in that piece than we heard Friday night. “Jardins sous la pluie” could have been more nimble, more transfixing – less bland. And, though Mr. Ax is generally an accurate pianist, he played a clinker at the end that really hurt. This happened on one of those heavily accented notes that conclude the piece. It’s always tough to play a clinker at the end.


Then Mr. Stoltzman returned, for Brahms’s Sonata in F minor, Op. 120, No. 1. Before they began, the players went through a kind of comedy routine, with Mr. Ax pretending to try to adjust Mr. Stoltzman’s music stand, and Mr. Stoltzman pretending to be difficult about it. This routine said: “We’re likable.”Yeah, yeah.


In the Brahms, beauty of sound is something like a prerequisite. Brahms needs it, in order to be fully Brahms. And Mr. Stoltzman wasn’t able to provide such beauty. Musically, however, he hardly put a foot wrong. He understands this work, breathes with it. In the slow movement, he demonstrated exquisite soft playing. To the Allegretto, Mr. Ax lent a nice character, talking on that piano. And the final movement (Vivace) boasted Brahms’s combination of sun and pep.


That all-American second half began with Bernstein, a fine friend to clarinetists. In 1949, he gave them “Prelude,Fugue,and Riffs,”and seven years before, at 24, he’d given them a twomovement sonata: youthful, jazzy, enjoyable. It was this that Messrs. Stoltzman and Ax played. The clarinetist, in particular, showed a true American spirit, but he exercised restraint: He didn’t caricature the music. In the second movement, he produced sassy squawks and suave licks – irresistible.


Incidentally, I believe I heard a little of “West Side Story” in this music. I could be wrong.


Next, the players turned to a new work, written by Robert Beaser, born in 1954. This is “Souvenirs,” consisting of four short pieces. It was originally written for piccolo (!).These pieces are Bernsteinian, as it happens: very American, confident, free. The first “Souvenir,” called “Happy Face,” is a total winner. It is infectious and lovely. The others are winners, too. In the third – “Cindy” – I believe I heard a little of “Oh, Susannah.” (Again, it could have been just me.) The fourth piece is a 9/11 piece, titled “Ground 0.” I hadn’t heard any 9/11 pieces in a while – we heard gobs of them from 2002 to 2004.


As he played “Ground 0” – and, by the way, he played superbly in all of these pieces – Mr. Stoltzman walked behind the piano; then, as he concluded, he walked slowly toward the stage’s back wall.


May I take this opportunity to say how much I despise gimmicks? Mr. Beaser’s music was speaking for itself. This bit of theater was as unnecessary as it was cloying.To me – if I may be at my frankest – it was repulsive.


Anyway …


To conclude the printed program was a work by Lukas Foss, his “Three American Pieces,” composed in the mid-1940s. Like Mr. Beaser, Mr. Foss was present in the hall, and, before playing, Mr. Stoltzman thanked him for letting him play these pieces, when the composer surely would have preferred that the clarinetist play something “written last week.” Mr. Stoltzman also noted that the “Three American Pieces” were originally written for violin – “for violin and piano,” Mr.Ax added. It was one of the most charming things I’d ever heard uttered from a concert stage.


Mr.Foss’s pieces are true to their title, right smack in the American school, or at least one American school. This school might be called “Coplandesque,” although that word is contentious, like so many words. In Mr. Foss’s third piece – “Composer’s Holiday” – I believe I heard the rhythm of “Dixie.” Again, it could have been just me.


And, speaking of a school, there was a sameness – a slight sameness – to the second half of this program.This despite the fact that we had three composers.


That fourth, mentioned earlier, was Gershwin, for, as Mr. Stoltzman announced,”You don’t do American without George Gershwin.” For their encore, Messrs. Stoltzman and Ax played (a transcription of) Gershwin’s Prelude No. 1. They did not play it well: Mr. Stoltzman was uncharacteristically sloppy; Mr. Ax was ponderous. Indeed, this was the worst playing of the night. I wish the recitalists had stopped with the Foss.


But it had been an interesting and satisfying evening, provided by two obviously nice – and talented, and much-appreciated – guys.


***


Dicapo Opera Theatre performed a service on Saturday night, presenting two seldom-heard Rachmaninoff works: “Francesca da Rimini,” a oneact opera, and “The Bells,” a choral symphony. “The Bells” used to be fairly common, but sort of slipped from the standard repertoire.The opera borders on the unknown. Dicapo’s concert took place at St. Jean Baptiste, the beautiful Catholic church on E. 76th St.


Many composers have treated the story of Francesca da Rimini and her lover Paolo, plucked from Dante’s “Inferno” (Canto V). Zandonai wrote a full-length opera. Tchaikovsky wrote a (famous) symphonic fantasy. It was his brother, Modest, who wrote the libretto for Rachmaninoff.


Rachmaninoff’s opera is suitably hellish, until you get to the love duet, which is soaring, gorgeous, intoxicating.You can tell that the composer was drunk on Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” as all composers were, really. “Francesca da Rimini” seems, for a stretch, a Russian “Tristan.” It is not a masterpiece, but it is a worthy opera, and that love duet is outstanding.


Dicapo gave us a concert version of “Francesca da Rimini,” led by a conductor with an intriguing name: Pacien Mazzagatti.A real conductor’s name! He knew what he was doing, shaping the opera with intelligence and conviction.


In the title role was a genuine Russian soprano, Olga Chernisheva. Her instrument is dark, and her singing formidable. She has that throb we associate with Russia, and also that fantastic cutting power. Her technique is nothing to sneeze at, as we saw when she sang a freestanding high B (that is,one preceded by no other note).Very impressive.


Also impressive was the tenor in the role of Paolo, Adam Klein, an American. He sang beautifully and easily. He has the kind of voice you might characterize as lyric-heroic. And a Mexican baritone,Oziel Garza-Ornelas,was Lanciotto, Francesca’s husband – who bursts in on the lovers the way King Mark does Isolde and Tristan. Mr. Garza-Ornelas was warm, focused, resplendent. Again, impressive.


Maestro Mazzagatti’s orchestra – which, from the looks of them, was essentially a youth orchestra – played with skill and alertness.


“The Bells” is in four movements, using a poem by America’s own Edgar Allan Poe. In addition to the orchestra and chorus, three vocal soloists are required: a soprano, a tenor, and a baritone.The baritone, in this instance, was Anton Belov, who had also been Virgil’s Shade in “Francesca da Rimini.” In both works, he sang with an authority – technical, musical, dramatic – that was almost frightening.


And the Dicapo orchestra is to be congratulated on having a top-notch English-horn player. According to the program, she is Megan Marolf.


Rachmaninoff’s choral symphony might be thought of as Christmas music – bells and all – and St. Jean Baptiste’s Christmas trees twinkled sweetly. But the work ends funereally, agonizingly – not exactly tra-la-la.


The New York Sun

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