Old-Fashioned Tonality & Rare Inner Voices

What are contemporary composers to do? Marginalized in an already esoteric world, how can they arrange for their pieces to be performed? Who is out there to listen? One answer is to think not globally but locally.The chamber ensemble of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s featured four New York composers on an important program of new music presented at the Chelsea Art Museum on Saturday afternoon.The recital is part of their Second Helpings series, wherein the performance is reprised upstate at Dia: Beacon on Sunday. All four composers were on hand to talk about their work; the good news is that management provided many extra folding chairs to accommodate the overflow crowd.Greg Sandow’s biography indicates that he used to be a music critic, so anything he attempts today has to be a decided step up. His piece, “A te,” for cello and piano, adopts the Baroque form of the variation suite, in which the variations on a theme – in this case an aria from Vincenzo Bellini’s “I Puritani” – are offered before the entrance of the original material itself. (The most famous employment of this form after the 17th century is in Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet.) The short mood changes, some jazzy, some rhythmically complex, some aphoristic, come rapid fire, but were handled with great aplomb by cellist Daire Fitzgerald and pianist Margaret Kampmeier.Joan Tower is the hostess of the series and also composer in residence at St. Luke’s. She has earned at least a modicum of fame in this arcane world, and deservedly so. I have enjoyed her pieces written for the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson trio, and the work on this program, “For Daniel,” was also given its premiere by them at the 92nd Street Y. It is an essay of intense beauty and emotional power, inspired by the life and death of a nephew who contracted lung disease.Ms. Tower adopts a Brahmsian perspective: This 17-minute struggle on the nature of breath sounds remarkably like one of his Sturm und Drang movements for piano trio. Krista Bennion Feeney, concertmistress of St. Luke’s, joined Ms. Fitzgerald and Ms. Kampmeier for a highly charged reading, and the cello playing was particularly involving. I was not expecting such a mature, affecting work on a program of newly constructed music.“Circa 5” by Martha Mooke, on the other hand, vindicated my long-standing suspicion of music that relies on stunts. This was the weakest work on the program. Musicians in the wings, in the back, walking down the aisle, string players taking turns at the keyboard: that sort of thing. We have heard it all before.Finally,violinist Krzysztof Kuznik, violist Louise Schulman, and cellist Myron Lutzke accompanied Ms. Feeney and Ms. Kampmeier in the world premiere of the Piano Quintet of Chester Biscardi, head of the music department at Sarah Lawrence College.Yes, accompanied is the correct word, as the piece is really a duet for violin and piano with a modern version of a string continuo.The work is inspired by the long-distance relationship of Telemachus and Odysseus, and Mr. Biscardi read a Homeric stanza as a prelude. The composer creates an ancient atmosphere with a craftsmanlike usage of string color, somewhat reminiscent of the orchestral parts in Benjamin Britten’s “The Rape of Lucretia.” The offsetting of the characters was interesting both sonically and dramatically, and the performance was certainly first-rate.So what did I learn from this concert about the pulse of contemporary music, at least here in Gotham? Well, I am happy to report that old-fashioned tonality is making a strong comeback. I, for one, have really missed it.***A former conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Gustav Mahler, once described Brahms’s “Variations on a Theme of Haydn” in these words: “Brahms’s variations are like an enchanted stream,with banks so sure that its waters never overflow, even in the sharpest bends.”These variations are, for me, both the epitome and the apogee of the form. They accomplish a complete transformation of the original material, the socalled “St.Anthony Chorale” (which, incidentally, probably was not even com posed by Haydn at all).When the theme returns for its triumphant reprise, it is now utterly metamorphosed by the material around it, a perfect mirror image of the effects of life itself upon the individual. Simply put, no piece of purely orchestral music is more glorious.This amazing essay opened an unusual one-off by the current incarnation of the Philharmonic on Friday evening at Avery Fisher Hall. Most bills here have three or four nights to develop, but this particular program was offered only on this single occasion. The home team had a good night.The performance of the Brahms was solid. Lorin Maazel shaped the whole so that the original theme did in fact undergo a magical transformation, and he brought out inner voices often otherwise unheard. I can’t believe I am writing this, but I actually wished for a little more attention from Mr. Maazel in the individual phrasing. Dynamics within variations were unvarying, and this caused many missed opportunities for poetic communication. Much could have been done with a crescendo here, a diminuendo there. But otherwise the sound of the group was fine, even as the interpretation was a bit stiff.Next came “Galantai tancok” (“Dances of Galanta”) by Zoltan Kodaly.Truth be told, this is not much of a piece; a string of melodious dances of insistent rhythm, it is what Frederick Fennell used to label a “popover.” The orchestra played this bauble well: The balances were steady, the intonation competent, but there was a certain leadfootedness to the proceedings – clog dancing rather than smooth swirling. Veteran clarinetist Stanley Drucker and hornist Philip Myers delivered superb solo work.Finally, the Symphony No. 7 of Antonin Dvoryak started out brilliantly. In fact, the entire Allegro maestoso was truly exciting, the group sounding as good as it possibly can.There was some deterioration in the Poco adagio, including an unintentional highlighting of the harmony in the strings when the entire woodwind section was late in entering, but this was still a fine effort.Deep down, I knew Mr. Maazel couldn’t last the entire evening without succumbing to his bad habits. The third movement – and, to a lesser extent, the final Allegro as well – was a prime example of “Lorin being Lorin.” He recomposed the individual phrases, stretched the rhythms to the breaking point, and generally attempted to establish the conductor rather than the composer as the alpha male. Mr. Maazel had two false starts before commencing the Vivace, lowering his hands twice to wait for absolute si lence, then launched into phraseology so outrageous as to negate virtually all his previously assiduous efforts.This was insulting to the listeners, to the players, and especially to Dvory ak. To me, it is inexcusable. How many more years does he have on that contract?Still, the evening as a whole demonstrated that the Philharmonic is able to play at a high level when the spirit moves it. Ironically, in a concert far above the average established at Avery Fisher Hall, the audience was downright miserly with its applause.

Old-Fashioned Tonality & Rare Inner Voices

Old-Fashioned Tonality & Rare Inner Voices

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