Monotonous Forest

Isbin and Baez, plus an unorthodox duo

Not Your Grandmother's Chamber Music.  The Juilliard Journal, May 2009

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world

Nothing quite prepared me for the International Contemporary Ensemble's recent production of Peter Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King at (Le) Poisson Rouge.  With a wickedly effective concept by director Lydia Steier, virtuoso work from the musicians, and a star turn by Peter Tantsits, it's going to show up on at least one "best of 2009" list.

[Photo courtesy International Contemporary Ensemble]

A mighty wind

One of my favorite comments about anything comes from Pierre Boulez, who identified four elements of the concert experience—the score, the musicians, the conductor and the venue—all working together like a series of mirrors, reflecting each other's images. 

This weekend, two blazing demonstrations of that concept are likely to occur when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra pulls into Carnegie Hall for the final time this season, and led by the great Bernard Haitink in two programs calculated to show the strengths of all concerned.  On Saturday, the sole treat is Anton Bruckner's monolithic Eighth Symphony, a vast canvas created from a simple melodic kernel—and one of the reasons why lately I hear Bruckner as a "proto-minimalist."  Using a simple scale that alternately ascends and descends, Bruckner reaches heights of extraordinary power, including a profound half-hour "Adagio," and a massive final movement in which all the previous themes return. 

On Sunday, Webern's lush Im Sommerwind (1904) is the preface to Mahler's Rückert Lieder, which will be sung by mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn, and the closer is Schubert's Symphony No. 9, "The Great."  Haitink, who just celebrated turning 80 in March, has never seemed more vital, and with these two programs, it is hard to imagine music closer to the maestro's heart.

 

[Bernard Haitink with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, May 16, 2008. Photo by Chris Lee]

Humor, premieres, more premieres, car parts

Monday night the American Modern Ensemble presents What's So Funny?, with wit by Aaron Copland, Robert Paterson, Peter Schickele and Vineet Shende, along with David Heuser's Immaculate, Bored, Off-Key and Vain.  A few blocks north, the superb New York New Music Ensemble presents world premieres by Chou Wen-Chung and John Harbison, on a program with Yiorgos Vassilandonakis's Réfractions d’une trajectoire sans but.  And at (Le) Poisson Rouge, Trio V, a brand-new group founded by percussionists Nathan Davis and David Schotzko with pianist Cristina Valdes, plays Cage, Stockhausen and Ivan Fedele, along with Ignacio Baca Lobera, Atli Ingólfsson, Christian Wolff and Peter Garland.

On Tuesday harpist Bridget Kibbey makes her (overdue) Weill Recital Hall debut that includes Albéniz, Rameau, Caplet and Kati Agócs, plus world premieres by David Bruce and Andrew McKenna Lee.  And downtown at the Players Theatre the Talea Ensemble will do music of Fausto Romitelli, Brian Ferneyhough, Bernard Rands, Philippe Hurel and Perluigi Billone, who wins the "Percussion Finds of the Week" award with Mani "De Leonardis" (2004), for automobile springs and glass.

Twelve-tone hilarity

This mock late-night infomercial has been making the rounds for quite awhile (Alex Ross uncovered the Cleveland-based culprit here in 2006), but somehow I hadn't seen this version with video added, which only amplifies the giggles. 

Overdosing on crawfish, oysters and jazz

Last week I joined five friends for the French Quarter Festival, billed as the largest free music festival in the South.  I have no reason to question that claim.  For three days on seventeen stages, hundreds of musicians give ample evidence (as if any were needed) that New Orleans is the jazz capital of the world.

Highlights of the ear-spinning bounty included Marva Wright ("Queen of the Blues") wailing "House of the Rising Sun," spectacularly melded with "Amazing Grace," and on Sunday afternoon, Irvin Mayfield (artistic director of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra) closing down the weekend with 90 minutes of unforgettable trumpet work with an electric sextet in Jackson Square.  In between, Mayfield stopped by his new Jazz Playhouse for an afternoon with players from the University of New Orleans, and Dwayne Dopsie & The Zydeco Hellraisers gave a typically high-energy set at the old U.S. Mint.  Dopsie, called "The Hottest Accordion in America" by the American Accordionists Association, has an equally fiery washboard expert, Alex MacDonald, who only seemed to grow more maniacally possessed as the afternoon wore on.

But the addictive music isn't the only draw: Louisianans know how to eat.  They take their food very, very seriously.  In addition to a memorable meal at Susan Spicer's haute-yet-disarming temple, Bayona (amazingly arranged by a friend who telephoned from Ramallah), we couldn't seem to get enough of a much simpler dish: char-grilled oysters from The Red Maple, based in Gretna,from their booth near one of the outdoor stages on the Mississippi River.  Slathered with butter, garlic and scallions, the oysters get fired shell-side down for maybe two minutes, and served bubbling hot with (if you wish) a splash of Crystal Hot Sauce, and chased with a cold cup of Abita Jockamo I.P.A.  All I could do was shake my head. 

[Photo: New Orleans Jazz Vipers, by William Trippe]

Chinese dessert

And after you've gorged on baked goods, on Saturday night the new music group Continuum presents China in America, with works by younger Chinese-American composers, including world premieres by Bun-Ching Lam and Huang Ruo.  With the exception of Kui Dong's Pangu's Song from 1998, the rest of the program is from the 21st century, including pieces by Lei Liang, Jing Jing Luo, Do Yun and Wang Jie.

Fresh from the oven

Who says contemporary music isn't homey, comfy, and soul-satisfying?  This Friday, Newspeak and Ensemble de Sade ("You clap when we tell you to clap") have concocted the first annual New Music Bake Sale.  The cookie sheet includes morsels such as Lukas Ligeti, So Percussion and others, with music from 7:00 until 11:30 p.m., all at the First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn Heights.

[Photo: "Carrie Cake" at the Bazaar Bizarre, photographed by Frauenfelder]

Comment(s) of the day

"One snarky comment on Petrushka not included by [Nicolas] Slonimsky, was Andrei Rimsky-Korsakov’s description of the score as moonshine vodka mixed with perfume.

"He said that as if it were a bad thing."

[From a review of Charles Dutoit and the Boston Symphony Orchestra by Karl Henning]

Just bring a hammock and move in

As if the MATA Festival isn't enough reason to visit (Le) Poisson Rouge this week, on Thursday night the International Contemporary Ensemble presents its acclaimed version of Peter Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King.  The piece stars tenor Peter Tantsits as the deranged King George III, in an innovative staging by Lydia Steier.

Then on Sunday, Keys to the Future presents Spotlight on Minimalism, with pianists Stephen Gosling, Blair McMillen, Lisa Moore, Molly Morkoski and Joseph Rubenstein, in tasty offerings by Nico Muhly, John Adams, Steve Reich, Howard Skempton and David Lang.  Just a few weeks ago Gosling and McMillen were dazzling in Reich's Piano Phase, which was happily videotaped, and viewable here.

[Photo: Peter Tantsits in Eight Songs for a Mad King, from ICE]