Gra-merci beaucoup!
Wednesday night's concert by the Gramercy Trio (Sharan Leventhal, violin; Jonathan Miller, cello, Randall Hodgkinson, piano) at Guzzetta Hall at the University of Akron was a true delight (though a delight, alas, shared by only 2 dozen people). The performance of my trio was sensitive, well thought out, and virtuosic.The 1st movement was played in a very light style that emphasized its scherzando qualities...not the way I'd conceived the piece, but it worked very well, maybe better than a more Sturm und Drang conception would have. I was thrilled with the performance.
Gramercy would like to do the whole program somewhere else, and Sharan Leventhal said that she would like to include my piece on some other concert. That would be wonderful if it happens, because I've had NO penetration on the coasts, which is where most American cultural consensus is built.
I see that Sharan is also a member of the Kepler Quartet, which would explain her remark about a "Ben Johnston-y moment" in the trio, and her good intonation. (They're recording all the Johnston quartets.)
Half my flute s'notta on the 22nd, then nothing scheduled until spring of '08, I guess I have time to compose and to promote some compositions.
Comments
Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: April 13, 2007 11:56 PM
Hmm, is a s'notta a sonata that's notta sonata?
Posted by: rightwingprof
Posted on: April 14, 2007 09:24 AM
Living for thirty-some years in Bloomington does spoil you. You get used to being able to go to free recitals multiple times a week, not to mention eight operas a year, or see the Beaux Arts Trio. I'm sorry to say that Penn State is sorely lacking in the musical arts. There's a studio performance of Albert Herring coming up, and we're leaping at the opportunity to go.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: April 14, 2007 09:13 PM
At the University of Michigan we despaired of the string players with their "Snottas and conceitos", and lack of interest in new music. That's not so much the case any more, especially as students awaken to the fact that study with Important Teacher isn't a free ticket to a high-paying orchestral job forever and ever. You've got to make your own opportunities, and new music (and Baroque!) is as good a niche as any.
Posted by: rightwingprof
Posted on: April 15, 2007 11:24 AM
You get the whole spectrum at IU, from pre-baroque to the very latest. The voice department needs to get a clue, though. I have never understood how they choose operas to put on, since they often choose something that's way too big for student voices. They will put on something big when they have big voices. They had two dramatic sopranos a few years ago and put on Ariadne auf Naxos (the tenors were awful, but then, very few tenors anywhere can sing Strauss well with those cruelly high tessituras). I've always said they should do more Gluck (speaking of, we're going to Spoleto this year just to see a Gluck opera).
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: April 15, 2007 08:33 PM
IU is the Godlike opera school (probably the Godlike early music school too) so they sort of have to do the repertoire. The voices might not be big enough for the parts, but if they were being pushed past physical limits, I'm sure the voice faculty would squawk. I appreciate that they do 20th c. repertoire. I found out they were doing Bolcom's _View from the Bridge_ AFTER they had done it...I might have considered driving out for that.
They could probably do an ideal job of Gluck IF they could get the opera dept. and the early music dept. to work together...probably not real likely.
Posted by: rightwingprof
Posted on: April 16, 2007 01:24 PM
The three best performances I've seen at IU were Don Giovanni, Wozzeck, and Orfeo ed Euridice. Don Giovanni and Wozzeck were either the same year or two consecutive years, and had much of the same cast (we had a lot of great singers at the time), and Wozzeck was directed by Franz Grundheber, who is an IU grad, and today's leading interpreter of the role. Orfeo ed Euridice was brilliant and flawless, and done in a year when they didn't have any huge voices. It was beautiful from beginning to end, and people were talking about it for years afterward. Curiously, the IU Music School never got a clue, and as far as I know, IU not only never did Orfeo again, but never another Gluck opera.
I've seen many better performances of Don Giovanni, but Wozzeck is one of my favorites. I've seen it at the Lyric, the Mac, and the San Francisco Opera. I've never seen it done better than it was done that year at IU.
There are very few IU performances that can be said about. Trust me.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: April 16, 2007 01:55 PM
Gluck isn't a big draw in general, and has the stigma of being something that students do (like Serva Padrona, and Baroque opera). And it's not as easy to put across as the notes would suggest. Wozzeck OTOH is THE 20th century opera (yeah, Puccini, Strauss, Britten...I know). Lulu is a harder sell (because of the plot, not the music, and the delay in getting a completed version). I've never seen a live Wozzeck, but Dohnanyi did a semi-staged version with CO. Ron Bishop played a bell-upright Italian helicon tuba in the banda. I forget the singers (Hildegard Behrens was Marie, IIRC).
When I lived on the West Side, I saw a few productions at Baldwin-Wallace: a double bill of Savitri (Holst) and Riders to the Sea (RVW), and a Susannah. Pretty impressive for the size school it is.