Somehow I neglected to write about the astounding
recital last April at Weill Recital Hall by Claire Chase, who won the 2008 competition
sponsored by Concert Artists Guild. It is a fine candidate for “Best Concert of
2010.” For those unacquainted with
her, Chase not only manages a performing career, but has been the powerhouse behind
the rapid rise of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). Demonstrating equal expertise as an
administrator and artistic catalyst, she has helped ICE flourish in a time when
economic pressures are causing new music groups to scale back or fold altogether.
But back to the concert, which began somewhat innocently,
with Chase and guitarist Daniel Lippel in Bach’s Sonata in E Major, BWV
1035. The two musicians showed marvelous
rapport, but the works appearing later all but buried it in my memory, such as Franco
Donatoni’s Fili (1981), an extended
study on what program annotator Whit Bernard described as a “non-theme.” Tiny motifs, no more than cells, are passed
back and forth in increasing amounts of tension, with silences playing a
crucial role, and Chase and pianist Jacob Greenberg showed the expertise of a
duo which had played this dozens of times.
Terrestre (2002) by
Kaija Saariaho made a dramatic change. Opening with a bird call, the composer
adds four musicians to unleash her subtle microtonal washes, and here Chase enlisted
stunningly alert ICE colleagues: Erik Carlson (violin), Kivie Cahn-Lipman
(cello), Nuiko Wadden (harp) and Nathan Davis (percussion). And in the evening’s most direct nod to
Impressionism, the brilliant harpist Bridget Kibbey was on hand to help paint Toward the Sea (also from 1981) by Toru Takemitsu.
Before launching the Boulez Sonatine (1946), Chase recalled rehearsing with Greenberg in a very quiet
house in Chicago, and as a result the police were called—not once, but twice—on
account of a “domestic disturbance.” Not
all flutists can tell a story like that and get belly laughs—and the humor only
highlighted the fearsomely adept performance that followed.
She closed with the first United States performance of Salvatore
Sciarrino’s 1993 arrangement of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. All but draining the performer of oxygen,
Sciarrino has created a thicket of breath control and rapid runs, and it’s easy
to see why it isn’t played often: it’s too damn hard. At several points Chase seemed to flag,
ever-so-slightly, perhaps tacitly acknowledging the stamina required in this
superhuman program. But never mind: this
was an heroic achievement, capped by an all-but-mandatory standing ovation
mixed with whoops and cheers as she came onstage again and again, grinning with
obvious pleasure.
Yet there was still more, an encore: Chase’s own virtuoso transcription
of Paganini’s Caprice No. 24. Its considerable
demands, which posed no threats to either her technique or her calm demeanor, made a firm
case for recalling this concert as one of the year’s Olympian feats.