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Luke Quinton
May 8, 2012
Review: Miro Quartet plays the Razumovsky Quartets
Although the Miró Quartet could probably play the lint in their pockets and make it sound interesting, using a stradivarius and Pablo Casals’ cello certainly hasn’t done them any harm.
And after all, Beethoven is no lint. The Miró is poised to record the Razumovsky Quartets (Op.59) in Austin at the end of this month as part of their continued dedication to Beethoven’s complete quartets. So with their hold on these three works quite in hand, they played them in full on Sunday.
For the occasion an anonymous donor has enabled the loan of an esteemed group of instruments from a Boston violin shop, and the Miró has also sought out the counsel of mentors — a process that’s sort of like Tiger Woods working with a swing coach.
Those who read pianist Jeremy Denk, in a recent “New Yorker,” painfully describing his recording experience, know that it’s a process that drips with second guesses and toys with a musician’s place in history. It’s one of the reasons a lot of artists sound better live or on the first take, when the pressure’s off.
And that’s the joy of the live concert experience: no second chances. Not that the Miró needed them, as they pounced on the first quartet. It was perhaps our best glimpse of the virtuosic side of William Fedkenheuer, who, judging by his animated movements, has found a new comfort level within the ensemble.
He and Daniel Ching seemed especially sympatico. They felt almost like a duo, as their violins were practically singing together. The first movement’s energy carried over to the second movement, which vibrated with a pent-up restraint.
The last two movements of the first quartet are part of what earned the Razumovsky Quartets their difficult reputation. With no break between them, they felt about five minutes too long, and 200 years later the many false endings felt stale — leaking out their energy.
But the two other quartets are much more thrifty and share a similar intensity. The “String Quartet in E Minor, Op. 59, No.2” gallops out of the gate, and keeps your attention with a diversity of sounds. The adagio cooled things down, and the Miró’s presto was blistering.
Leaving the concert, you’re curious how the process of recording might change the Miró ’s interpretation. These three quartets have been recorded frequently, and nothing here seemed radical, but played live, there was an exquisite energy that we expect from the Miró. Which is to say, we’ll be looking forward to the record.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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May 7, 2012
Review: Conspirare & the Austin Symphony Orchestra
I hadn’t checked the program, so it was a surprise at first to see Conspirare’s director Craig Hella Johnson take the podium Saturday night to conduct the Austin Symphony Orchestra.
As it turned out, this swap was all planned in advance, with Peter Bay conducting Conspirare’s Symphonic Choir for Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms.”
But it was fascinating to see Johnson conduct an instrumental ensemble, one without voices. They played Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue,” probably the composer’s most famous organ piece, made famous in the 1920s, when it was orchestrated by the musical director of Disney’s “Fantasia.”
Johnson has always been an expressive conductor, and here he seemed to transfer his energy to the orchestra, with a very animated left hand — something more common to choirs — which he used to communicate Bach’s dramatic dynamics and counterpoint to the orchestra, and the audience.
It was an invigorating start, which was all the better, because up next was Stravinsky’s dark and haunting work with a hundred choral voices, under Peter Bay.
The choir was quite affecting, and make quite a presence lined up in a formidable wall, but the piece uses no violins, which left a gaping black hole in most of the stage. It was visually distracting.
More orchestrated Bach came after intermission, but it was Leonard Bernstein’s “Chinchester Psalms,” that left an impression. It has a boy soloist, which imparts a certain innocence to the work. The full orchestra and choir are both beautiful and entertaining, with stunning lyrical sections and unexpected surprises from the percussion section.
The young soloist, Lucas Revering, did very well, with a fine tone, though it was a strain to hear at times. We also heard some fantastic tenors and solos throughout the choir and orchestra.
Something else which caught my ear was the orchestra’s placement. Because of the hundred voice choir behind them, the ASO players, who are usually nestled inside the curtain line, were shifted out front, above the orchestra pit. I can’t say how it felt for the players, but in the audience, the increased volume was remarkable.
I’ve often said it sounds sometimes as though the orchestra is playing in a separate room, and for this concert, I was back halfway in the mezzanine, yet never had to strain to hear the strings. I don’t often hear orchestra patrons mention this topic, so I’m curious whether they discerned a difference or not.
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Luke Quinton in an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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May 3, 2012
Review: UT Symphony Orchestra with Jillian Bloom
You get the sense, listening to Shostakovich’s first cello concerto, that Russia in the 1950s was not such a fun place to be, at least not for an artist relying on unfiltered self expression. It’s sobering to think that around the same time Leonard Bernstein was writing parts for” West Side Story,” Shostakovich completed this dark and difficult cello work.
But that’s oversimplifying of course. Just a few years later came Bernstein’s “Kaddish,” and its own moments of darkness.
The UT Symphony Orchestra under Gerhardt Zimmerman hosted cellist Jillian Bloom, who whipped through the concerto with precocious poise.
Bloom, who also plays with the Aiana String Quartet, the university’s graduate quartet in-residence, has true presence on stage. In a stylish dark dress that highlighted her dramatic shoulder tattoo, Bloom was confident from the start of the concerto’s ominous theme.
She also had some nice accompaniment from the horn and violas, and seemed quite at ease through fingerings that were seriously exacting.
This is what is a “hard” piece. Not just difficult to play, but difficult to follow. Most college-level orchestras probably wouldn’t attempt it. Except for a section of starry harmonics, which Bloom nailed, the concerto is on constant attack. It could score a thriller.
The symphony also played Beethoven’s eighth symphony and a piece by UT composition student Zach Stanton.
The eighth isn’t Beethoven’s most memorable symphony, but UTSO came out with a brisk pace and feel at the opening, which set the tone.
Stanton’s piece, “I and the Night Sky: Nocturne for Orchestra” was a delicate ten minutes under guest conductor Tim Laughlin. Some fine string solos shone, but the orchestra was a little shaky, with some exposed playing that was a little rough around the edges. Still, a good work from Stanton, who has a piece upcoming with the Austin Symphony.
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April 30, 2012
Review: The Butler Trio
Something about the rhythms of our weekends allows for a pleasurable lull on Sunday afternoons. So, landing gently into a Sunday matinee was the first concert from the Butler Trio, a spinoff of the Miró quartet, featuring Joshua Gindele on cello, Colette Valentine on piano and the Miró’s former second violinist Sandy Yamamoto.
The Miró players have always succeeded in bringing out something fresh in Schubert’s music — keeping it interesting in its old age. And the Butler Trio’s approach was no different for Schubert’s “Piano Trio in B flat major, Op.99.”
The expansive final movement was a knockout — with the finespun beauty that can be so intellectually (and emotionally) appealing on a lazy Sunday.
Yamamoto, who continues to teach at UT, has not lost a beat. And together, the trio seemed very comfortable with one another, communicating effortlessly into a clean and rich sound.
The second half was Dvorak’s “Piano Trio in F minor, Op.65,” and it was very difficult to suppress the urge to clap after its epic opening movement. Its short solos shone. None were shrill or overdramatic, just played with stunning tone and sensitivity, though the piano was muffled in the balance.
The third movement would have made a darkly beautiful ending. So it’s too bad the piece finishes with the only musically dull movement; a lot of effort given to work over the same uninspiring themes.
After the applause it seemed half the audience in the Jessen auditorium made its way backstage; friends, family and students there to congratulate the new trio.
There is a great deal on Austin’s classical music calendar most Friday and Saturday nights. If the Butler Trio were to make these Sunday matinee concerts a regular event, Austin would be enriched not only by the concerts’ perfect timing, but by the music of another ensemble of national quality.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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April 16, 2012
Review: Austin Lyric Opera's 'Turandot'
There was a palpable buzz in the air on Saturday night as the Austin Lyric Opera opened Puccini’s “Turandot,” its season finale.
Those of us who, ahem, arrived late, caught the first act from a balcony that was standing-room-only, and the packed house that spilled out at each intermission was lavishly dressed and having a blast. It was as if everyone had collectively decided that recession-era opera was over.
Opera patrons typically dress up, especially on opening night. Even so, this weekend’s sartorial choices stood out.
Prominent in the crowd were a top hat and a man in riding boots. You know it’s serious when the men break out the props.
In a happy coincidence, the stylish opera goers were rewarded with a bold and stylish opera.
After a season of solid productions with lean sets, the opening scene of “Turandot” was packed with energy and activity. The setting is pre-modern China, with a chorus of villagers in rice paddy hats, mingling amongst large stone walls carved with dragons. The walls were lit in vivid red and dark orange, and as the executioner grinds his sword sharp, sparks fly out, dramatically.
The sword is for princess Turandot’s latest victim, another suitor who’s failed to answer her riddles. The penalty is death, but it doesn’t stop the next prince, our hero, from trying to win the quiz and Turandot’s hand in marriage.
The story is hokey in places, but it’s saved by Puccini’s brilliance for musical drama and a big chorus — the villagers who are always ready to pop in with their opinions. Oh, and a few blockbuster arias.
On opening night a few scenes stood out. The ministers Ping, Pang and Pong make stunning use of the library’s rolling ladder, as the trio pines away for better times with exquisite timing, tone and movements.
The show’s musical highlight is Elizabeth Caballero’s turn as Liu, the play’s most sympathetic character. Caballero nearly steals the show with a prodigiously beautiful voice, that shimmers with emotion, volume and nuanced shades of color.
The crowd positively fawned over her, with an applause several orders of magnitude above the others (a wave of gratitude that topped any I’ve heard at the Long Center, for any concert). It plainly floored the young soprano.
The other principals, Lise Lindstrom as Turandot and Frank Porretta as the Prince, bring fine voices, though Porretta was often drowned out by the orchestra and chorus. His “Nessun Dorma,” the heart-stirring aria, fared much better.
A great deal of praise belongs to the sprawling sets by Keith Brumley (which premiered last fall at Kansas City’s stunning new Kauffman Center), and some deft direction by conductor Richard Buckley and choreography by stage director Garnett Bruce.
Aside from what has always been an awkward finale (it’s hard to feel kindly towards the murderous princess), “Turandot” is certainly this year’s best night at the opera, and a brilliant finish that puts recession-era sets to rest.
“Turandot” continues 7:30 p.m. April 20, 3 p.m. April 22 at the Long Center for the Performing Arts. See www.austinlyricopera.org
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Photos by Mark Matson.
April 2, 2012
Review: Bion Tsang with the Austin Symphony Orchestra
Friday’s Austin Symphony Orchestra concert wasted no time, starting the night with solo cellist Bion Tsang and Dvorak’s “Cello Concerto in B Minor.”
For Tsang, an assistant professor of cello at the Univesity of Texas, this was his debut with the hometown symphony and conductor Peter Bay. And Tsang certainly made an impression.
The ASO sounded gorgeous right out of the gates, clear, confident notes from the woodwinds and brass. Their exposition could have gone on, uninterrupted.
So it was remarkable how the character of the music changed when the cello started in.
If some cellists play across strings like silk, Bion Tsang plays with “crunch.” There is a meatiness to his playing as he pulls through Dvorak’s double stops and big ringing chords.
It’s no less beautiful — Tsang is nimble in the delicate upper register — it just adds a kind of stylized weight to his playing.
At times Tsang’s interpretation seemed a little tricky for the orchestra’s soloists to align with. Tsang held on for a perilously long time to the central melody’s climactic half note, nearly undermining its power. But Tsang never went too far. Rather, it felt like a modern reading of a well-tread piece, one that kept the crowd on the edge of its seat.
The Concerto’s second movement is one of the most arresting pieces of music ever written for the cello. Its climax is so devastating you almost don’t want the third movement to come.
It was a credit to Bay and the symphony that they managed to keep up the piece’s energy right to the last notes.
On the other side of intermission came Arvo Pärt’s “Summa,” an impossibly beautiful six minutes. The mournful little work could have gone on for hours.
But there was Mozart to play, the audience’s selection of his “Jupiter” symphony, whose final movement belongs in the dictionary under “Classical Music.” The piece was pleasant enough, but felt short on drama, with the middle voices drowned out in large sections by the first violins.
It was Tsang’s night. Given the choice, most of us would rather see a performance like Tsang’s — one that refuses to play it safe. This tactic can be messy, but it can also feel dangerously alive.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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March 5, 2012
Review: Denyce Graves with the Austin Symphony Orchestra
It was nice to see a singer take the stage at the Austin Symphony this weekend.
And a mezzo-soprano at that. Denyce Graves emerged wearing a yellow satin dress with bright pink shoes, making quite an entrance against the black and white of the orchestra.
Graves’ dress was a bright contrast against Ravel’s moody “Sheherazade,” which plays on the sounds and colors of Asia and the Middle East of “Arabian Nights.”
Graves has a very full mezzo-soprano voice, and Peter Bay and the Austin Symphony were astute accompanists in this program of all-French composers.
Graves’ voice perhaps sounded best during Lalo’s “De Tous Cotes, J’apercois,” one of the evening’s operatic excerpts. Although Graves was notably looser for the “Carmen” crowd-pleasers, “Seguidilla” and “Habanera,” which she sang from memory after intermission (and a costume change). Her interpretation came with a bit of dramatic vocal flair that was a welcome move away from the stock version.
The persuasiveness of these big, accomplished operatic voices is a matter of personal preference, and the audience seemed quite taken with Graves. For my part, the tone of her lower register felt a little “throaty,” while her more angelic higher pitches seemed to come from a separate place.
The loudest roar of the night came after the orchestra played Saint-Saens’ barn burner, the “Bacchanale” from “Samson et Dalila.” Principal Oboist Beth Sanders gave a wonderfully twisted touch to the famous opening oboe solo, and the rest of the piece thundered along beautifully.
All this was sandwiched between Berlioz’s “Le Carnaval Romain” and the finale, Ravel’s “La Valse.”
The brass sounded were a clear presence for the flashes of excitement in the Berlioz. While “La Valse” is more subtle, a pretty waltz with a sense of unease that lurks just underneath, until the dance comes crashing down at the end.
It was a well-crafted program that showed the unique facets of French music which, for 200 years, has continued to age into a very respectable vintage.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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February 22, 2012
Review: Clutch UT New Music
CLUTCH (which allegedly stands for “Collective Labors of the UT Composition Hub”) is a sort of demonstration day for the University of Texas undergraduate and graduate composers. It’s a flash in the pan: music the audience doesn’t know, and music it probably won’t see again, but it’s the habeas corpus of a young composer’s world; turning notes on a computer screen into real music for a live audience.
It’s not a night of refined professional music. Some playing is a little rough, and so are some of the pieces. But if some aren’t to your taste (and this is ‘new’ music, after all) you’ll come away with a few that move you, and you’ll have a better idea about what kind of music is being written in your backyard.
On Monday night, Clutch was a nimbler program, just an hour, in a small lecture auditorium (three hour marathons were not uncommon last year).
The most dramatic was for the eight-piece UT Percussion Ensemble, a work by Lane Harder, who conducted. The work somehow corresponded to the science of falling “through” a black hole. It began with one beat, then expanded to the whole group, shifting the rhythm around, beating progressively louder, until all eight players surrounded a bass drum and pounded out the same beat like a tribal sweat lodge ceremony. It was aggressive but engaging.
Cassandra Shankman took a simple approach, a piece for Stephen Krishnan’s solo guitar, called “A Good Man.” It’s a sweet little piece that could easily slide into modern guitar repertoire, with dissonant sections broken by big ecstatic chords.
Generally speaking, the simpler pieces are the most successful. The musical ideas are easier to realize for a duo than an ensemble of six different instruments.
A case in point, Joel Love’s fierce viola-violin duet “Synchronicity in Purple Minor,” was inspired by a painting at the Blanton Museum of Art, and commissioned for its composers project. The players, Polina Nazaykinskaya and Ksenia Zhuleva stayed tightly linked, for a work that could’ve gone wrong at a number of points, but didn’t.
These are young composers, still feeling their way between mastering their skills and creating a piece of art. Which is also why Clutch is worth checking out.
On the web: http://www.utclutch.org/
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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January 30, 2012
Review: Austin Lyric Opera's Lucia di Lammermoor
Who knew a death scene could be so much fun?
In the Austin Lyric Opera production of “Lucia di Lammermoor” now at the Long Center the most famous scene is a wild and woolly epic run-up to death, a quarter hour that it takes Lucia to paint us the full picture of how completely she’s lost her mind.
Donizetti’s opera, aside from this “mad scene” and the famous sextet at the center of the production, is actually a pretty slim affair. There’s not much of a story in it. Think of a more concise ‘Romeo and Juliet’ set in Scotland, and sung, uh, in Italian. Girl loves bad boy, but girl’s forced to marry a schlub for political stability — problems ensue. There’s betrayal, vengeance, but most importantly, madness.
The sextet (a big chorus piece, highlighting the work’s six principal voices) was smartly paced by conductor Richard Buckley, and had the voices braiding energetically through the hall.
Even so, the production depends on the mad scene, and Russian soprano Lyubov Petrova was a fantastic madwoman, teetering dangerously around the stage, undone by her actions and the circumstances.
Petrova sang delicate waves of sadness, then soaring notes of manic joy, a performance that brought home the crowd’s scandal of seeing raw, unhinged emotion in 17th century Scotland.
Once Lucia comes down the staircase in a bloody nightgown, she’s fully transformed. She hallucinates a scene with her former lover in a giddy soprano, then waves a sword at the terrified crowd, until she’s shocked into the realization that she’s just killed her unwanted husband.
Why is this tragic scene so much fun? For one, we know it’s coming. For two, Petrova’s multifaceted mania cycles through so many contrasting emotions that remains still unpredictable. The audience just sits back and enjoys the performance.
On opening night the principal voices came out of the gate a little cold and overall they remained slightly uneven in quality, though Texas-born tenor Chad Shelton was a deserved fan favorite.
The sets are effective, especially in the large chorus scenes, which had a nice depth, suiting the strong work of the chorus itself. Dim lighting predominates, but added to the eerie mood, and accentuated the rich color palate of the period costumes.
Lucia di Lammermoor continues at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 3 and 3 p.m. Feb 5 at the Long Center. 19-$135.www.austinlyricopera.org
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Photo by Mark Matson for Austin Lyric Opera.
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January 23, 2012
Review: Golden Hornet Project's 'Fugitive Visions'
Golden Hornet Project basically told Sergei Prokofiev, “Thanks for the melodies,” and then brought a New Orleans style jazz stomp right on top of the Russian composer’s head.
Ten years ago, almost to the day, since they first played it, Graham Reynolds and Peter Stopschinski’s composing project took on Prokofiev’s “Visions Fugitives,” at Spiderhouse’s 29th Street Ballroom.
In 1917, young Prokofiev published twenty short piano experiments, a stunning collection that tinker with dissonant harmonies, ungainly melodies and silence. Like a chef’s tasting menu, “Visions” is a smorgasbord of spooky, circus-like and pretty tunes that are over almost as soon as you’ve had a bite.
The evening started with University of Texas jazz professor Jeff Hellmer, playing through the original work in its entirety. Some are reminiscent of Erik Satie, others are so thoroughly modern they could’ve been placed on Reynolds’ soundtrack to the film “A Scanner Darkly” without anyone batting an eye.
It was over in 20 minutes or so, a truly economical work. And then, after intermission, The Golden Hornet Project’s took the stage, with trombone, vibes, sax, double bass, synth and drum kit. “You’re going to love hearing the original, and then you’re going to love hearing how we completely destroy them,” Stopschinski said at the beginning of the night. And it was so.
Using the 20 visions as their base, the band charged through arrangements by Reynolds and Stopschinski.
Some remained pretty close to the original, and they could be surprisingly delicate and quiet, no small measure of restraint with a band this energetic.
Like Prokofiev’s, a few arrangements were more fully formed than others, like (what I’m fairly sure was) “No. 10,” which appeared on an early Golden Arm Trio album. It’s a meandering, banal little circus piece that, half way through, erupted with a hurricane of horns attacking at full volume until Reynolds raised his hand up, and brought it crashing down to a finale. The crowd went absolutely bonkers.
When the two composers squeeze with Hellmer at the piano to play a compressed version of the last few “Visions,” it’s like a Bugs Bunny skit. Stopschinski crumples up and throws each finished music sheet, while Reynolds stampedes up the keyboard, forcing the other two pianists hands to lift at the last second to make way.
That showmanship is the most obvious thing separating Reynolds and Stopschinski from the new (classical) music. The funny and relaxed banter, percussion duels and improvisational breaks are second nature to these guys.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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Review: Conspirare's 'Whitacre & Lewis'
In January, when most of the city’s arts programs are waking up from a mid-winter’s nap, Conspirare is chomping at the bit, with fierce programs that take over entire weekends.
Last year, Craig Hella Johnson and company were racing out of the gate with a supremely ambitious mini festival of Renaissance and Baroque music, hours upon hours of material.This year the pace slowed only slightly. The choir’s weekend was booked with four concerts of Joby Talbot’s “Path of Miracles,” but they also managed to sneak in a single concert of U.S. premieres of work by American composers Eric Whitacre and Peter Scott Lewis.
Conspirare seem to have an affinity for Whitacre’s ecclesiastical music. Pensive, solemn, and generally very beautiful, Whitacre has a deserved following among choiristers. His music is at its best when tinged with a layer of darkness, as in “Five Hebrew Love Songs,” which pits the women’s bright, cheery tune against the men’s somber Greek-chorus.
Conspirare’s premiere performance of Whitacre’s “Alleluia” was a clear highlight. A spectral sustained note at the start folded into warm chords that were reluctant to resolve. Quite stunning.
The premiere of “Occuli Omnium,” a grace written for Sidney Sussex College at the University of Cambridge, was of a similar mind, though somehow not quite as sublime.
If Whitacre’s work is heavenly, Peter Scott Lewis’ is more Freudian and self-conscious.
His work “The Changing Light,” was based on the words of the esteemed Beat poet, San Francisco publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
The poetry came from Ferlinghetti’s more recent, more naturalistic work, evoking the sunlight of San Francisco, the moon and birds in the underbrush.
But, to borrow one of the poet’s own lines, the music accompaniment felt “anchorless upon the ocean.” No real melody, little in the way of discernible structure or polyphony, Lewis’ work was like a palate cleanser that lasted a whole meal. Fans of the written word among the audience might have preferred the choir mount a poetry reading.
In any case, the afternoon ended with Whitacre’s “Sleep,” a stiff but welcome contrast that sent us away in a lingering meditative state.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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November 21, 2011
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra with Anton Nel
The air in the Long Center was extremely dry and cool Friday night, the probable cause of a lot of coughing. But the air also lent the house Steinway piano an icy clarity at the hands of soloist Anton Nel.
Nel, a beloved and longtime Austin resident (and professor at UT) appeared quite sharp in full tux and tails, to play a blistering Liszt piano concerto (No. 2) and the “Symphonic Variations” by Cesar Franck, as well as a encore by Schumann.
This year marks Franz Liszt’s bicentennial, and his second piano concerto is still lush and difficult, with sections that sound like the pianist is fleeing on a bridge above snapping piranhas.
Mellower sections featured beaming horns and a lovely duet with cellist Douglas Harvey. And when the Liszt stormed to its finale you sensed Nel might have gone even faster (and with no loss of precision), but he was reined in to a more reasonable pace by the orchestra. This piece was certainly the evening’s climax.
Conductor Peter Bay and the symphony did quite well on their own. The “Variaciones Concertantes” by Argentina’s Alberto Ginastera has 12 micro-movements with solos working their way through the orchestra. It highlighted some strengths and weaknesses in the various sections, with were some especially fine cello and french horn solos.
Bay’s work stood out in the final movements as he conducted like a ball of energy addressing a flurry of entries and dynamics with a flourish.
The “Symphonic Metamorphosis of themes by Weber” by American composer Paul Hindemith ended the night — a jarring contrast to Nel’s sentimental (and beautiful) encore, the Liszt arrangement of Schumann’s “Widmung.” Despite its bombastic opening, it’s a fine piece with some very pretty flute work on the main theme.
Nel is a dramatic player, more for a monstrous technical precision than for an emotional or lyrical style, but his tone shines at both ends of the keyboard. In the Franck, with its delicate tinkling trills, Nel charged through, delicately declaring each individual note. At times it was too quiet, perhaps, and was blanketed by the orchestra. But in any case, his stunning runs and turns across the piano were more than dramatic enough.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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October 24, 2011
Review: Ensemble VIII
James Morrow’s Ensemble VIII is probably the most specialized arts ensemble in Austin — aside from the Bach Cantata Project, another of Morrow’s groups.
Last Friday’s concert at St. Louis Catholic Church on Burnet Road was their first of the season (last season consisted of a single preview concert of sorts). Yet they’ve already found a following in the cross-section of lovers of choirs and lovers of sacred music.
Eight singers, including Morrow himself, sing pieces from the Renaissance and Baroque eras, building on a strong base for early music here in Austin.
It’s a niche that’s much smaller than most groups would agree to. Unlike the Texas Early Music Project (TEMP), which dedicates itself to both instrumental and choral music of a similar period, Ensemble VIII sings with neither lutes or flutes, though that may change.
Not that they’ll run out of a capella music anytime soon. As TEMP has long known, and Conspirare showed at its weekend festival of Renaissance and Baroque music last January, it’s like a theatre group restricting itself to plays from the Greeks through Shakespeare — there is a ton of beautiful work, almost none of it well known.
On Friday, it was the music of Renaissance Spain, with Victoria (1548-1611) and Morales (1500-1553).
Morales’ work was the evening’s find, with dense, swirling voices that circle each other. To modern ears it recalls Bach, and following the harmony and melody patterns as they trade from one singer to the next, is a brain workout.
This is the kind of music that appears in murder mysteries at the climactic death scene.
The singing was crisp, resonant and cohesive. The ensemble were like a small orchestra of voices.
Especially stunning was the work written expressly for all eight voices. It goes full-tilt, each unique part flows gorgeously in and out of the whole.
The first half was lively and moving, with short, often brilliant works. In the second half, we heard Victoria’s requiem, “Officium Defunctorum,” a slower moving event.
The more sombre Victoria is a cause for meditation. It’s a long and beautiful work that probably asked a little too much of the audience for a Friday night concert.
And again, one must ask whether it remains necessary to force the audience to crane their necks with seats perpendicular to the singers. If it is some issue of historical accuracy, let us hope for a renaissance of comfortable seating.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
October 17, 2011
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra
Art depends on its context. Music, sculpture, architecture — it’s all influenced by what surrounds it. So if you’re mixing one art form with another, there is a lot to consider, but above all, the question is: Do they combine to make a better experience?
Not enough of these questions were posed before this weekend’s performance of Holst’s “The Planets,” by the Austin Symphony Orchestra and conductor Peter Bay at the Long Center.
It was billed as a multimedia experience, but in fact it was a “Hatch Productions” video from 1996, a dated and underwhelming film, the style you might find in a high school library.
The ASO had success with a similar concept last year, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s, “Beyond the Score” documentary production about Dvorak’s writing of his “New World” symphony.
Where that succeeded — live actors, Ken Burnsian photography — the Holst production failed in every measure.
A former astronaut, Colonel Benjamin Alvin Drew Jr., was narrating, but it could have been anyone, reciting facts about the planets and moons. Why not employ his considerable personal experience? The man has flown 10 million miles in space.
And this was in service of low-definition video that moved too quickly, drawing attention away from the music.
Why do this to “The Planets,” one of the great popular orchestral works? Grade school children are captured by its straightforward theme: music about the unique “characters” of our solar system.
If there is a piece that needs no introduction or elaboration to catch the imagination of listeners, this is it. Listeners’ imaginations have already been caught.
One expected more up to date space imagery, like the breathtaking shot of the Horseshoe Nebula on the show’s poster. Surely audiences are not so literal as to require images of only the specific planets.
A single shot of each planet, or at the most, a few images, with very slow, subtle edits, would have improved on the video.
Instead, the churning, jagged animations of a planet’s surface removed all sense of discovery, and showed listeners what to envision.
All this was a shame because the orchestra played a beautiful “Nocturnes” by Debussy, with fine solos, alongside heavenly work by Conspirare’s Symphonic Women’s Chorus, no video required.
And musically, “The Planets” had moments of brilliance. Douglas Harvey’s sublime cello solo in “Venus,” moments of strength from the brass and horns (aside from an occasional squawk), and wonderful textures from the organ and harps.
Let’s hope the ASO weights its next choice of visuals much more carefully.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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September 27, 2011
Review: Anne Akiko Meyers and Bion Tsang with Austin Chamber Music
The Austin Chamber Music Center’s 2011-12 season opened with a typically challenging and diverse concert at the First Unitarian Church Saturday night. Not only did it feature music that veers slightly off the beaten path, but it enlisted two of our city’s finest to play it, Anne Akiko Meyers and Bion Tsang.
Those who have seen Meyers on a larger stage will attest to her uncommon intensity. She was born to play big halls and auditoriums.
Meyers’ facial expressions communicate concentration, determination and, occasionally, satisfaction. At times her tone pierced the air of the church with an overwhelming delivery of sound.
In Ravel’s “Sonata for Violin and Piano” each movement is strictly unlike its predecessor. It’s got some fierce counterpoint, and called on Meyers to play her Stradivarius, according to Ravel, “like a banjo.”
A few in the audience shuddered at that thought, but Meyers really plucked the string with force before whirling through the nimble third movement.
Like the other works of the evening, it showcased the cross-pollination of French and Asian culture that occurred after Ravel and Debussy attended the World’s Fair in Paris.
Tsang and ACMC director Michelle Schumann opened the evening with Debussy’s “Sonata for Cello and Piano.”
Tsang gave silence plenty of space in the first movement, and though some tones felt a little thin the indelible tune carried nicely and his pizzicato was sensitive and lush.
“Black Earth” by Fazil Say achieves a neat middle eastern effect by manipulating the piano strings. Schumann paced the work beautifully.
The “Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor” by Anton Arensky caused a moment of drama when one of the piano pages was discovered missing. It brought things to a brief halt, and a smile or a laugh by the trio might have relaxed the tension, but by the third movement it was ancient history.
For all this outstanding playing, the atmosphere of the First Unitarian Church can be hard to love.
Mostly, it’s the lack of stage lighting. There is something in the human species that prefers sitting in darkness; perhaps an atavistic memory of campfire stories.
Darkness removes distraction, focuses our eyes stage-ward, and helps us locate that special feeling of absorption. It delineates a line that separates our ordinary lives from the stage, and even for music this good, that separation matters.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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September 26, 2011
Review: Conspirare
Samuel Barber referred to himself as a “living dead composer,” explained Margaret Perry in her pre-concert lecture this weekend before the Conspirare concert. It’s a humble-brag: Barber felt confident he would be remembered, but his name never seemed to be on the tongue of America’s music lovers, even though the “Adagio” which cemented his legacy appeared in film after film.
So it was a pleasure to hear Conspirare’s voices open their 19th season with an all-Barber concert under the direction of Craig Hella Johnson.
The two halves of the concert pulled us much deeper into Barber’s repertoire, and revealed very different styles in Barber’s choral work.
These were fairly short works that had rhythmic intrigue, sometimes elusive harmonies against lyrics that were by turns abstract and poetic.
“God’s Grandeur” began with bold, goose-bumping chords, and outstanding tone from the tenor and bass voices. The hall sounded noticeably crisp and reverberant.
“Let Down the Bars, O Death,” was especially pretty, if dark; haunting in subject, key and its brevity.
The male and female voices refuse to intersect in “To be Sung on the Water,” a gorgeous work that implies a sorrowful distance between the two voices.
When the first notes of the “Adagio” came rolling slowly through the hall the choir was both chilling and uplifting.
Conspirare fans will impatiently await its recording.
Composer Robert Kyr, in attendance at the performance, did us the service of rearranging Barber’s “The Lovers” for a chamber orchestra.
It’s a long work, set to the poetry of Pablo Neruda.
There are some erotic lines, but most are quite chaste, and the music looks more to the sublime side of love: a vulnerability and sense of loss.
Some lyrics are quite ungainly in both translation and their placement in the line, turning soloist David Farwig into the role of a spoken-word poet, as he hustled to stay ahead of the music.
It’s a difficult work without easy melodies, the kind that rewards multiple listens.
Conspirare’s latest CD, “Sing Freedom!” came from last year’s opening concert, and that pattern will repeat with a recording of Barber.
All indications are that it should be a stunner.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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September 12, 2011
Review: Joshua Bell and the Austin Symphony Orchestra
In just the last eight months the Austin Symphony Orchestra has hosted as many premiere violinists as an aficionado could hope to see in a lifetime: Itzhak Perlman, Anne Akiko Meyers and this past weekend, Joshua Bell for the orchestra’s season opener at the Long Center.
It was no surprise to his fans that Bell embodies a particularly rich sweetness in his tone. And seeing it live was a reminder that some artists simply translate better on stage than on an album (and many of Bell’s albums are already outstanding).
Just as importantly, conductor Peter Bay and the symphony sounded newly invigorated for Strauss’ “Death and Transfiguration,” which opened the evening. The strings sounded especially unified, with pinpoint dynamics, alongside fine solos from flute, viola and violin.
Bell began with the Tchaikovsky “Meditation,” arranged by Glazunov, and in his trademark loose black shirt, Bell played this mournful theme with crystal clear tone, a tone that was strikingly elastic, delicately working the fingerboard.
Not to be outdone, there was also some fine clarinet counterpoint to accompany Bell’s ghostly high vibrato.
After intermission, Bell revived Glazunov’s violin concerto, debuting in Austin a work he described in conversation last month as an “old war-horse” of his idol Jascha Heifetz, perhaps the most revered player of the last century.
And it is pleasingly old fashioned, but more importantly, it’s a sprawling showstopper brimming with difficult double stops, left-handed pizzicato, charging melodies and ephemeral bird-like sounds. Apart from its difficulties, and a gloriously off-kilter cadenza, it emits a nostalgia for the black and whites of old Hollywood.
One might argue that Bell’s monster concerto should have closed out the evening.
Certainly there are a plethora of considerations that decide concert order, but there is something in our human nature that revels in the anticipation, like a vintage Bordeaux stored in the cellar for special occasions.
In any case, after well-deserved and copious applause for Bell, the symphony ended with Rimsky-Korsakov’s nicely textured “Russian Easter Overture,” with good work from the strings and brass, including a fine trombone solo, though the brass ramped up the volume a little too soon, drowning out the strings before the triumphant finale, at least as heard in the mezzanine.
It was a standout evening for the orchestra and Peter Bay, and, from Joshua Bell, another coup for classical music patrons.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts writer.
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September 6, 2011
Review: Miro Quartet
If the reaction to his fiddle playing is any indication, William Fedkenheuer will have no trouble fitting in to Austin.
After opening their University of Texas concert season with Brahms and Haydn, the Miro Quartet turned to their newly appointed second violinist to lead an encore of the bluegrass standard “Orange Blossom Special.” Nice touch.
Fedkenheuer, as way of introduction, explained that he was once (and still is) a talented fiddler. Then he polished off a tidy version of the bluegrass standard, with the rest of the Miro keeping up quite nicely, complete with a few pitiful “train whistles.”
The crowd clapped along, and gave Fedkenheuer a sweet moment of inauguration. It must have been some relief to the rest of the ensemble as well, after nearly half a year of rotating tryouts in the second chair.
But the serious business of the night was Haydn, Philip Glass and Brahms.
Haydn’s “The Joke,” his “String Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 33” was pleasant; brisk in the presto, but a little indelicate in the largo as if the quartet were not quite warmed up.
The Glass quartet, “No. 5” eats bow hairs, from the churning cello parts to the little cyclone-like violin riffs. And as audiences discovered when the Miro took it on earlier this summer, the quartet simply has a bead on how to play this work.
The Glass is emotionally exhausting, worth the price of admission on its own.
The Brahms “String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 51” was pleasantly bouncy, and features some sections of unusual dream-like diversions. The third movement fell a little flat, though, with overly subdued dynamics.
The length of the work felt stretched there, for a time, only to crash into the whiplash finale of the Allegro.
Fedkenheuer is an animated player and a charismatic speaker. He sought out eye contact from his colleagues, and brought a lovely tone to the Brahms.
One can never reliably gauge a single player in an ensemble except in case of disaster. But, reliable or not, one evening’s performance indicates that Fedkenheuer’s poise and lyricism are a fine addition to the Miro Quartet.
The Miro’s next concerts in Austin include Oct. 1 as part of the “Austin Pictures” show, Oct. 23-24 with Salon Concert and Nov. 17 at UT’s Butler School of Music. See www.miroquartet.com.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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July 11, 2011
Review: Miro Quartet opens Austin Chamber Music Festival
It’s time to look at the Miro Quartet in a new light. The departure of Sandy Yamamoto as second violinist is a natural point of transition for the ensemble, but as they opened the Austin Chamber Music Festival on Friday night at the Bates Recital Hall, the Miro seemed transformed — sort of basking in the glow of music that resonated deep in their bones.
Cellist Joshua Gindele hardly gave his score a glance all night, preferring instead to meet eyes with the rest of the ensemble, urging them on with his shoulders or a tilt of his head.
First violin Daniel Ching was basically on fire. High vibratos were heartbreaking, and delicate harmonics were like glass.
Composer Kevin Puts’ “Credo” was commissioned for the Miro in 2007, when they sought a work that would emphasize something positive about America during that difficult era.
Puts’ music brings a violin shop to life, paints a picture of America’s buildings and bridges, and recalls the beliefs and hopes that formed the backbone of this nation.
Its opening chord was achingly beautiful. As the quartet inhabited a luthier’s shop, it was exactly the sound you’d imagine from roomful of violins, could they speak.
Next was Michael Torke’s “Mojave,” with Tom Burritt on marimba. It didn’t seem to swing as it had earlier this year, but this homage to the desert was still entrancing.
In an evening of superlative performances, Philip Glass’ “String Quartet No. 5” was the masterstroke.
The 1991 work defies Glass’ reputation as a repetitive, and as minimalist, for that matter. With its ever present pulse, it groups little thoughts on top of hypnotically pretty passages, then releases, with heart-stopping chords, pulled out in great unified strokes by the Miro.
Ching, again, played several gorgeous solos. But the Miro as a whole had a determined charisma in their movements, pushing each other forward.
This was the Miro at the top of their form. Tereza Stanislav filled in nicely at second violin, as the Miro continues to search for its new member.
In the meantime, the ensemble revels in this carefree confidence that is breathing new life into their work, and inducing ever more chills in concertgoers.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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June 13, 2011
Review: Conspirare's 'Missa Latina'
It was beautiful from its first moments. Soprano Heidi Grant Murphy’s voice spilled out fragile notes of inevitable sadness. Murphy was at the forefront of a stage packed with musicians Sunday night at the Long Center: A battalion of strings, wind, brass, percussion was just the first wave, with 150 voices looming behind them.
“Missa Latina,” a full Latin Mass by Puerto Rican-American composer Roberto Sierra, produced a huge and diverse sound. The choir under Craig Hella Johnson, seamlessly combined Conspirare and the Victoria Bach Festival chorus.
When the Latin rhythm first enters, near the end of the Introitus, it shifts the solemnity, as if we’ve just turned from a church alter to glance out a window into the streets of San Juan. The music remains ponderous and weighted, but in a way that’s peculiar to Latin America.
As it turns out, “Missa Latina” follows the traditional churchgoing variety quite closely. It’s a solemn, spiritual work and, as Sierra recently explained, the Latin rhythms - shakers, arcing trumpet riffs - do not lighten the religious content, but create personal “moments of introspection.”
And it’s not as if Murphy is about to leap out and sing a number from “West Side Story.” Several movements end with a devastating bass drum, as if the gates of Hell just closed behind you.
And in a way, they have. The Credo is a whirlpool of doubt that follows unbridled joy: the orchestra breaking into full-out San Juan ballroom style Gloria, with its infectious “Hosannas” making heads sway in the choir.
Then the Credo, almost painfully drawn out, emanating doubt from all its pores as the sopranos gently, slowly sing like angels.
Johnson expertly managed his army of vocalists and musicians, and moved vibrantly on the podium. An early tempo in the shakers was out of sync with the baton, but was soon overcome. And crisp, moving work by brass and oboe filled the hall.
Baritone Daniel Teadt, gamely filling in for Nathanial Webster, was unfortunately outmatched aside the angelic Murphy. Where Murphy’s voice projected with ease, Teadt’s felt tight. It had trouble resonating, especially in the lower register.
“Missa Latina” is a journey, and not an easy one for the listeners. But, Dios mio, it is rewarding.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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May 16, 2011
Review: Ensemble VIII's 'Renaissance Splendour'
With just eight singers, including artistic director James Morrow — singing bass and conducting from within — Ensemble VIII slid into a niche few knew existed.
It was a little surprising to learn that Austin would launch another choral ensemble with national pedigree, but the group’s first concert eloquently made clear its reasons for being.
On Friday at the beautiful and bright chapel of St. Louis Catholic Church, the voices filled the airy rafters with clear harmony and a pleasing reverberation. With the men looking quite smart all in black, the group formed half a circle near the atrium and cycled through a Ockeghem’s “Salve Regina,” with a tight pocket of harmony.
It was impossible to tell that these voices had scarcely a week of rehearsals to blend.
The rolling cadences of Ockeghem showcased the clarity of these singers. The tone was very even, and the sound felt well balanced as the parts intermingled, though in a later piece a counter tenor felt too dominant in the mix.
Ensemble VIII’s inaugural concert featured the music of Ockeghem, Josquin and Englishman John Sheppard. This is sacred music, but it is also very stylish, very complex music. At times the blend of voices felt sublime; gorgeously in tune and expressive.
For “Stabat Mater” by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Ensemble VIII split in half, facing off down the center of the hall, fifteen feet apart. This was a dramatic staging that expanded the stereo effect of the doubled voices.
Unfortunately, most chairs in the chapel were awkwardly positioned for the night’s concert, perpendicular to the chorus. To see the ensemble, you had to twist about 45 degrees, something even yoga instructors would not advise.
The Ensemble distinguishes itself with a capella arrangements that create a focused, minimalist concert. Unlike the Texas Early Music Project it has no period instruments, and unlike Conspirare, Ensemble VIII does not play in the realm of thunderous chorales, or venture past the Baroque era.
Pulling in Renaissance specialist-singers from across the United States, Morrow hopes the smaller group will become a nimble touring ensemble. Its fall season includes dates in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
April 30, 2011
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra with Itzhak Perlman
On a night of pomp and circumstance, the 100th anniversary gala of the Austin Symphony Orchestra was rippling with energy.
A scintillating performance by (still) the world’s most eminent violinist, Itzhak Perlman, capped off one hundred years of music with a moment that will be remembered as one of the symphony’s best.
There was a palpable energy in the room — the buzz that comes from a concert hall packed full to the rafters.
Conductor Peter Bay and the symphony began with two works that appeared on the inaugural program in 1911. A subdued Mozart “Symphony No. 28” began after the national anthem and a preview of the 2012 season (with yet more big names).
Luigini’s “Ballet Egyptien” had a gorgeously deep, full sound. Strong bass beats and a sweet oboe solo painted a plethora of colors.
When Perlman navigated toward his chair at center stage after intermission, it was to fierce applause.
Bay carried Perlman’s violin on stage, while Perlman held the baton. Bay, holding onto the violin to let the applause last, received a playful scowl from Perlman, which got the crowd laughing.
Perlman, though, in a flowing black shirt, came to play. Max Bruch’s “Violin Concerto No. 1” just seems to suit Perlman, flaunting every one of his strengths (there are no weaknesses, if you were wondering).
Perlman defied already high expectations.
Tone. Honey-vibrato. Piercingly beautiful high notes, blazing through prickly runs. All the while, Perlman is expressive and relaxed. He looks like you’d imagine the Greek Poet Homer, sitting to recite “The Iliad.”
In this already beautiful work, Perlman seemed to pull out even more moments of sweetness. His bow (with such a high bow-hold!) slices like a cleaver through warm butter.
His performance drew the most natural standing ovation of the season, deservedly so.
If the Mozart and Luigini found the symphony reluctant to milk the soap-opera dynamics those pieces seem to demand in this hall, Respighi’s “Pines of Rome” took on the Bruch’s spark.
The trumpets sang out, and the piece had a perfect, quick gallop. The dynamics here felt alive, helped by pulsing woodwinds, a stunning clarinet solo, and a pleasantly triumphant finale.
The cupcakes, champagne and lore around this centennial gala gave this celebration a singular vivacity, yet it’s music like this that will last another hundred years.
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April 21, 2011
Review: ASO's Young Composer concert
On Wednesday night, the Austin Symphony Orchestra and Peter Bay made space on the podium to test out work from the youngest composers in Texas. This was a first in the state, we’re told, for a symphony to debut works written by Texans 18 and under. Out of 25 submissions, the ASO played 12 short pieces.
Disregarding the skills required to write for an entire orchestra, an accomplishment in itself, just listening as the musical vision of these young men came to life with the power of the full orchestra, was impressive.
All of the works had enough interplay between the sections of the orchestra to keep you intrigued. Sometimes the results were unusual — like using the string principals for extended solos — and sometimes the composers forgot to enroll the orchestra at its full capacity, leaving some dead patches. But a few of the them had an advanced understanding of how to put the whole group of players in service of their vision.
One of those was Wyatt Hahn, whose clever “Giovane Ballerina’s Suite,” was a symphony in seven minutes, with three tiny, hugely effective movements. Hahn, amazingly, a freshman at Cedar Park High School added color to a succinct waltz, with chimes. Then wood blocks and snare enforced the theme as it emerged, and faded, with the evening’s best use of dynamics.
Some pieces resembled video game soundtracks, or film scores a la Danny Elfman, and some could back up a PBS documentary, tonight. Quite a starting point for kids who still take P.E.
It was a treat to see so many young faces in the crowd, cheering after each piece. And this could become a “thing.”
Like the University Interscholastic League’s championships, this competition could improve and affect band and string programs in high schools across Texas by giving kids, composing on a computer in their bedrooms, something to aspire to.
As it was, the composers were all male, mostly white and from some of the most elite public schools in the state, something that says more about schools than about the competition itself.
Let’s hope that next year we see the entire face of Texas, including some young women.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
April 4, 2011
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra with Nexus
Toronto’s Nexus percussion ensemble brought some mysticism to the Austin Symphony’s performance on Friday night. With two sets of chimes hanging from the upper balcony, Nexus seemed to expand the size of the concert hall to perform Toru Takemitsu’s “From Me Flows What You Call Time,” a meditative work that originally celebrated the 100th anniversary of Carnegie Hall.
Those chimes were strung up to multicolored ribbons that draped over the audience, to two posts on the stage. The ribbons alter the setting, but the sheer arsenal of bells, gongs, woodblocks and drums made the stage look like some medieval Asian marketplace.
The five percussionists enveloped the orchestra, with a set of steel drums dead center. The piece takes a cosmic approach to honor a century of music and performance; it could be the soundtrack of the beginning of the world — often silent, with patterns of chimes, creeks and vibrations that engender awe. If a symphony is an epic poem, this is Takemitsu’s 35 minute haiku.
The orchestra, under conductor Peter Bay, was largely in the background, with eerie, delicate colors. The use of steel drums as a strange centerpiece was striking, but the most stunning moments came from the clanging of a gigantic nippled gong, whose long wavelength oscillated in thick waves.
The pulling of the ribbons to activate the balcony chimes recalled a call to worship, a sign of the music’s power as it reached through the audience and the entire hall.
It was a sonic feast.
The second half marked a shift in moods, with Ravel’s “Menuet Antique” and his orchestration of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.”
The “Menuet,” a sprightly little work, found Bay and company in a wonderful, brisk tempo. But this was just a little, energetic appetizer.
The main course was Mussorgsky’s symphony standard, as the composer walks us through a literal exhibition — one that moved the composer to give its paintings a soundtrack.
The ASO tackled the work with gusto, with excellent string work, and notably sharp percussion. Saxophone and trumpet solos flowed easily, as did some color from the winds, but the work’s strenuous demands were apparent on a few occasions, as the wind and brass both had trouble articulating some faster, exposed runs, and one solo suffered from tuning challenges.
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February 24, 2011
Review: Miro Quartet with Colin Currie
Mixing percussion with a string quartet is a tantalizing bit of weirdness, shaking up the usual routine.
Scottish percussionist Colin Currie is a dynamic marimba player, with laser accuracy, and for him the music of Michael Torke, Dave Maric and Steve Martland is familiar — indeed, he was chosen by the composers to premiere many of these works.
But Tuesday at UT’s Bates Recital Hall, Austin’s Miro Quartet was not to be outdone, handling new — monstrous and tough — pieces with poise and elegance.
The first stand-out was “Mojave,” Michael Torke’s sound poem for the drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Its winding string parts were beautifully evocative of that sparse landscape.
There was so much for the ear to feast on. Currie’s marimba work was mesmerizing, with cathartic chords. The cello was too quiet in the mix, but the Miro grooved comfortably with Torke’s syncopations.
“Starry Night,” by Steve Martland was the American premiere of this gorgeously lush work.
It opens with charging strings but the marimba’s entrance gives you chills. The piece runs non-stop — a lot of counting work for the Miro — infused with African folk tunes. It was a rewarding finale.
Noah Bendix-Balgley filled in nicely for the Miro at second violin, and although the reams of new music had them focused more than usual on their parts, the Miro brought their characteristic expressiveness to bear.
But Currie and the Miro also separated for a few tunes. Currie for Dave Maric’s spare and spooky “Sense and Innoncence,” and the Miro for Samuel Barber’s iconic “Adagio” and Shubert’s “Quartettsatz.”
Currie melds well with Maric’s moody electronic sampling, and it was a crisp, thoughtful work. But things felt a little awry when Currie played Steve Reich’s “Nagoya Marimbas” alongside a pre-recorded tape.
The piece is for two players, so the problem for the soloist is plain: how to coordinate with a second player in each city? But paying to watch one of the world’s best percussionists accompany a tape is absurd.
The live interaction between two intertwining parts is the performance. If this show is to tour around the country, which, by all other indications, it should, the Reich should be reworked or dropped.
With all the transcendent music in this program, it more than overcomes this tiny annoyance, and should it make its way around the country, the Miro and Colin Currie will turn more than a few heads.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Read an interview with Colin Currie and Miro Quartet cellist John Gindele about this concert here.
February 23, 2011
Review: 'CLUTCH, New Music by UT Composers
Watching Clutch — a concert of new compositions from University of Texas Butler School of Music graduate students —on Monday night was like witnessing a conference for magicians, displaying their latest tricks.
The composers are expanding the available tools: bass clarinet, four saxophones, harp, pedals with electronic samples, buckshot on a bass drum.
Composer Steven Snowden is a rising star, and the drama that erupted from his latest percussion work isn’t about to slow his ascension.
Snowden enlisted Line Upon Line, Austin’s up and coming percussion trio, for his three-part work, “A Man With a Gun Lives Here.” The stage contained a chalkboard next to a giant bass drum, lit from below by a yellow floodlight.
As the trio surrounded the horizontal drum, Adam Bedell drew a “one-legged” triangle on the chalkboard. In the near-darkness an eerie mood came on. They traded rhythms, violently banging the drum skin and edge with sticks and the butt end of mallets, like some tribal campfire ceremony.
Or perhaps a fire kept by vagrants, as each movement’s chalkboard symbol carried a message from the system of “hobo signs.”
Snowden’s work recalled a more direct John Cage, while the call and response, to an extent, recalled STOMP. “Be Prepared to Defend Yourself,” the first movement, was aptly named. Rubber balls were dragged across the skin of the drum, reverberating like a warplane overhead.
The third movement introduced a paper bag.
The bag was passed around the drum until being dramatically stabbed with drum sticks, spilling buckshot over the drum. This gave the trio yet another avenue of sound, each bang now echoed with hundreds of jumping ball bearings, the sound of waves from each tilt of the drum.
Theatrics have repercussions though, as Snowden, at intermission, attempted, pitifully, to clear the stage of the metal balls using music stands.
There were plenty more highlights. Max Stoffregen’s “La Magie Noire” was a tidy violin duo with each player literally finish the other’s phrase through the entirety of the piece, alternating with delicate harmonics.
“Funk Off” by Andrew Davis was a clashing history of funk and contemporary art music, with four saxophones.
Like magic, there’s an ephemeral quality to new music. It’s here, then gone. But it’s a chance to go big with your best ideas, and if some of the dissonant, fragmented works don’t translate for the audience, the next new trick is coming up.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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February 21, 2011
Review: Anne Akiko Meyers with the Austin Symphony Orchestra
The Austin Symphony’s season has been laced with soloists, but no other performance approached the technical and emotional caliber of violinist Anne Akiko Meyers Friday night at the Long Center.
From the opening notes of Prokofiev’s “Violin Concerto No.1 in D Major” Meyers’ tone pierced the hall like a laser beam. Her initial slide on the violin’s fingerboard was literally astonishing. It more closely resembled an electric guitar than the Molitor, her $3.6 million Stradivarius.
The Molitor sounds fierce: rich in the lower register, but liquid smooth up higher, so it stands to reason that the rest of her performance would be electrified. But the truth is that Meyers possesses a tone so pure that it emerges just a few times in a generation.
Meyers’ iridescent blue and black dress mimicked her playing: shifting instantaneously from Prokofiev’s delicate muted passages, to wildly demanding pizzicato and roughness near the instrument’s bridge.
Perhaps it’s simply the adversarial nature of the piece, but the symphony felt tentative at time, as it jostled with Meyers for the rhythmic center. Then again, it was a little hard to argue with Meyers’ audibly stomping foot, as it seemed (truthfully or not) to urge the symphony forward.
Stravinsky’s “Petrushka,” though, was the surprise of the evening. Originally scored for the ballet by the same name, the work is a reminder that Stravinsky is music’s James Joyce. Some melodies flow like honey, only to have the rug suddenly pulled out from under them with a low rumble or a circus theme.
But the symphony had this work under its thumb. Maestro Peter Bay, with perfect pacing, set the tone. The orchestra took a piece that feels a little grating on recordings, and made it gorgeous; soft and sweet, but also eliciting chills with abrasive chords when the time came.
The Haydn that began the evening (“Symphony 93 in D Major”) was light and breezy, like a pleasant aperitif. It’s not Beethoven, but the work may have benefited from a quicker pace and more dynamic contrast.
Certainly its finest concert of the season, the ASO hit the sweet spot of a thought provoking Stravinsky interpretation alongside a fiery soloist whose power and grace dominated the stage as only the most gifted artists can.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Photo by Ricardo B. Brazziell/American-Statesman.
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February 14, 2011
Review: Emanuel Ax, piano
During his quick lifetime, the composer Franz Schubert sought a legacy of his own.
Composing music in Vienna under the shadow of Beethoven must have felt like writing plays in London next to Shakespeare. As Michael Tusa said in his pre-concert lecture, Schubert dedicated a sonata to Beethoven, but scholars aren’t sure Schubert and his mentor ever met.
After Schubert died at 31 it took decades for the dust to settle, for his most original music to be widely published and appreciated.
Celebrated pianist Emanuel Ax’s all-Schubert concert nicely demonstrated the arc of Schubert’s career, at Bates Recital Hall Thursday night.
Schubert attempted to sell complex sonata-like pieces by renaming them “impromptus,” short works en vogue at the time.
Ax began with “Impromptus Op. 142,” four works that are thought to belong together, and showcase Schubert’s struggle between complexity and popularity. They are alternately lyrical, with hummable tunes, and brilliantly complex, with long arpeggiated runs and surprising key changes.
Ax was a strong presence, infinitely composed while stretching through all corners of the piano.
The proper sonatas came next, with “Sonata No. 13 in A Major,” which Ax began with perfect pace. But the work falters slightly midway through, feeling a little short on drama.
If the impromptus and first sonata were more gymnastic than memorable, the “Sonata in B Flat Major” makes you wish Schubert had lived a few more decades.
Replete with sudden, dramatic pauses and a handful of tunes that wind a bittersweet feeling through the work, this work is a masterpiece.
In the digital era, hearing two hours of a single composer works against our instincts. We crave variety, and ultimately programs like this are more academic than emotive. But Ax is a silently brilliant tactician who made them look easy. He played the entire concert from memory, and only once did his eyes flicker in surprise at having missed a note.
The packed house at Bates was obviously smitten and ready for an encore, when Ax, like a Zen professor, quieted the crowd and thanked them for being an outstanding audience, putting the night to an end. Ever the master.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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January 31, 2011
Review: Austin Lyric Opera's "The Italian Girl in Algiers"
Rossini’s comic opera, “The Italian Girl in Algiers,” was a breezy start to the new year for the Austin Lyric Opera Saturday night at the Long Center.
The funny, lighthearted work is energized by strong leads, clever staging and a nimble score.
The orchestra, under the vibrant direction of Richard Buckley, sets the mood with a brisk, melodic opening. Then, the trouble: a biplane streaks across the stage.
Applause erupts as the set “opens,” revealing a Moorish palace court, with patterned floor and archways.
Elvira (Cara Johnston) enters, complaining that her husband, Mustafa, has fallen out of love.
Mustafa, the “bey,” (a governor, of sorts), makes it known that he’s had his fill with his wife. He’s over her preening and her extravagant demands on his time. That, and he hears stories about the women of Italy.
So, Mustafa declares his plan: He’ll ship Elvira off to Italy with his Italian slave, Lindoro (Javier Abreu), and he’ll send his men to fetch him a Lamborghini upgrade.
As luck would have it, the very woman arrives, having crashed her (stylish) plane in desert, with her new man, Taddeo (Peter Strummer).
But Isabella (Sandra Piques Eddy) is more horsepower than Mustafa expected, and she plots an escape with her fiance, Lindoro.
The leads are brilliant. Pecchioli’s Mustafa dances and moves like Michael Jackson in “Thriller.” His face is elastic, and from pompous to effeminate, he’s hilarious.
Eddy embodies Isabella perfectly, as a cross between Amelia Earhart and Sophia Loren.
The voices of both were resonant and fluid, transmitting a bouquet of emotions, from comedy to despair.
Abreu is fun to watch as the straight man, Lindoro, but his voice seemed a little thin as it crept to the lower register.
All secondary parts were outstanding, most notably Strummer as “uncle” Taddeo, a classic comedy “big man.” Strummer’s perfect timing was matched by an ample voice, which made his little shrieks and movements even funnier.
The score is just as much fun, even when the orchestra outpaced the singers in some brisk verbal passages.
The orchestra’s dynamics were especially tight, and a horn solo early in the first half was especially sonorous and beautiful. The whole work felt fresh.
“The Italian Girl in Algiers” continues 7:30 p.m. Feb. 2 and Feb. 4, 3 p.m. Feb. 6 at the Long Center. www.austinlyricopera.org
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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January 28, 2011
Review: Bang on A Can All-Stars with Glenn Kotche
Bang On a Can have been banging on pianos, drum kits and strings since they formed in 1987 to fill in the gap between avant garde classical and experimental pop.
Their All-Star descendants played a compelling show at UT’s Bass Concert Hall on Wednesday, with special guest, percussionist Glenn Kotche.
Kotche is the drummer for beloved alt-American band Wilco, but he’s also released three solo record. This concert gave evidence that he writes absorbing, original music outside the rock sphere.
Uniting with percussionist Ian Ding, Kotche starred in the second half, with a dazzling expansion of Steven Reich’s “Clapping.”
Reich’s piece was a spare work for four hands — an academic response to African rhythms. Kotche’s variations are for four hands and four feet, challenging the ears to anchor onto an individual rhythm before it morphs to another.
Ding and Kotche then swap drum kits for the floor, covered in resonant metal plates, and pick up a new rhythm. You almost pine for Reich’s simple handclaps.
The next two works were equally engaging, and a generous transition from the first half, which pushed the boundaries of how long an audience can withstand a single musical motif.
The All-Stars began with the first movement of Brian Eno’s seminal ambient work “Music for Airports.” It’s astounding that such a modern piece was written in 1978.
The problem with a long ambient work is that its purpose is to be stimulating background music. It served that purpose phenomenally well, but after the initial theme began to loop for the fourth or fifth time, with only microscopic adjustments, it became apparent that the piece just doesn’t work on stage. It lacks a visual stimulus, of say, travelers and aircraft landings.
A similar issue occurred with a frenetic, devil’s-workshop interpretation of Workers Union by Louis Andriessen. The piece allows the musicians to choose their own notes, but not rhythms or dynamics.
Pieces like this are why Bang On a Can exist, and it was thrilling to watch them play it, at first.
But after ten minutes it was like listening to a thousand third graders eat lunch — in synchronized, polyphonic rhythm.
Thank goodness for Michael Gordon’s beautiful and brilliant “For Madeline.” An elegy to his mother, it’s melancholic, with little dark melodies, glissandos angling up and down against the background of pulsing marimba.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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January 24, 2011
Review: Conspirare & Robert Kyr
The church was dark. Tall wooden platforms holding rows of candles were being carefully lit, when a single, angelic voice reverberated from outside the hall.
A small chorus of voices joined in, slowly coming closer and louder, until they entered St. Martin’s Lutheran Church, where all the candles were now lit, casting an alluring glow from the altar. The voices swirled around the pews and the singers of Conspirare stepped in to begin a concert of work by Renaissance master Josquin des Prez.
Friday night’s concert — the first in a series of four for the Grammy-nominated Austin choir ‘Renaissance and Response’ festival featuring new compositions by composer Robert Kyr — was directed by Conspirare artistic director Craig Hella Johnson with effortless ease.
(Kyr’s challenge, a commission from Conspirare, was to compose a 21st-century responses to music of Josquin, Orlandus Lassus, Tomas Luis de Victoria and J.S. Bach.)
De Profundis began, appropriately, from the depths, with bass David Farwig and tenor Tracy Jacob Shirk’s stark duo. They established the beautiful straight-tone that would echo throughout the evening: the entire choir eschewing vibrato, which illuminated flawless tone, pitch and harmony.
The concert was a display of the flat-out power of these voices, without adornment. Only the string parts felt occasionally flat.
Josquin’s music was a revelation. Its sparse beauty contrasts with the bubbling of voices that whirl about each other. “Gaude Virgo Mater Christi” split into gusts of windy melodies, until the piece ended in unison, with a long, powerful reverberation.
Kyr’s response to Josquin was an expansive cap to the evening. Its haunting Latin blended with gorgeous English phrases as the choir again encircled the pews, leaving only Abigail Lennox‘s voice to fly around the bricks and domed ceiling, slowly bringing the circle to a close.
Certainly, the Josquin was Conspirare’s best program of the season, perhaps one of its best to date. It was a resounding success: solemn, serious, and gorgeous.
On Sunday, three concerts later on the four-concert program, the ensemble joined a last time to sing Bach and reconsidered all of the Renaissance composers in Kyr’s four responses.
In the daylight of St. Martin’s, Bach felt a little diminished next to the stark beauty of the Renaissance composers.
Bach’s influence looms so large that his style of bright polyphony and counterpoint is still emulated today. So there was an inevitable comedown after the alien beauty of Josquin.
Even on their last, exhausting concert, Conspirare sounded strong. Kyr’s cantata alternated his Renaissance responses with a duo that took its lyrics from “Dark Night of the Soul,” by St. John of the Cross. They told the entire story, reaching a poignant climax, though certain sections felt a touch drawn out.
Kyr’s responses to Lassus and Victoria loomed large, especially “From the Abyss,” which told the story of Jonah and the Whale through the music of Lassus. Conspirare’s singers captured this babbling brook of music, swelling like the sea with its dark, haunting chords.
Kyr’s works were impeccably envisioned. They reinvigorated the concerts as a palate cleanser while expanding on each composer’s musical and lyrical ideas.
Spiritual, contemplative music, with the dazzling arrangements and work of Kyr and Johnson, Austin has much to anticipate from the future of this partnership.
‘Renaissance and Response’ was performed at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church Jan. 21-23 by Conspirare. See Conspirare brings new vigor to Renaissance music.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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January 18, 2011
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra plays Dvorak's "The New World."
“America is full of Indians and wild animals,” says the voice of Antonin Dvorak. It’s 1891 and the composer is mulling over an opportunity to write a symphony.
Dvorak is reluctant, but accepts, and he embarks with his family to New York.
The swirling black and white footage of a sea voyage was a stunning beginning to the live, before-your-eyes film that played onstage above the live narrators and the Austin Symphony Orchestra with conductor Peter Bay, the film’s soundtrack.
The concert’s confusing title (Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s “Beyond the Score”) led to a slightly comical online disclaimer that read “NOTE: Chicago Symphony is not performing.” There was some confusion as to what the program entailed.
With the lush narration talents of Dianne Donovan, Rick Rowley and Tom Byrne (as Dvorak), the period film footage told the story of the construction of Dvorak’s ninth symphony, “The New World.”
The sea rocks and swells with Dvorak’s music pulsing, then the brick and iron of the city vibrates with the crush of people in Lower East Side markets. There’s footage of Niagara Falls and Native Americans in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.
Throughout, the narrators embody different characters. The composer is concerned that expectations of him are too great. He senses that he’s being asked “to create for them a national music.”
Dvorak is moved by the story of Hiawatha (actually a Scandinavian myth, we’re told), but here the film lulls, hitting the musical cues while abandoning the narrative.
For the second half, the ASO performed the symphony in its entirety.
It opened with good energy, building to the major theme, but the second movement began a little roughly, with imprecise entries from the brass. The winds and oboe, in particular, made up for it, carrying the solo melody.
The strings’ dynamics had, at times, some wonderful movement.
The third movement, though, felt a little sluggish, and would have welcomed a little more pace.
Although balance seemed fine, this listener’s ear formed a direct, and unfortunate, link to the bell of a trombone for most of the night, again suffering from the hyper-fragility of the Long Center’s acoustics.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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December 13, 2010
Review: Texas Early Music Project
Packed tightly under the wood beams of the First English Lutheran Church, the crowd settled in Saturday nigh for the city’s most moving and intriguing holiday commemoration.
Utterly removed from the commercial trappings of modern Christmas, the Texas Early Music Project transports you to a church in ancient Europe, when songs were a more integral part of the season, and caroling with friends more vital than a letter to Santa.
This concert highlighted the traditions of northern Europe, drawing from as far back as the 15th century.
A series of French Noels were an auspicious way to begin. “Noel Nouvelet,” was sublime, with harmonies from Jenifer Thyssen and Meredith Ruduski that had the audience holding its breath in silence.
The Irish traditionals showed just how far back folk songs go, and gave us a chance to brush up on our Irish Gaelic.
The Wexford traditional, “Ye Sons of Men With me Rejoice,” featured the rousing male voices singing a lively carol with excellent unison.
When Scott Horton’s five-foot-tall lute (a theorbo) let out a troubling crack just prior to intermission, the crowd let out a gasp. But the show went on, and later, when Horton was asked to say something about his instrument, he allowed that it was a “Pain in the butt,” to great laughter.
This is part of the appeal of the TEMP. Everything feels handpicked: a select cadre of outstanding singers, visiting soloists who specialize in period instruments and concert notes with lyrics that gently guide you through each song.
The TEMP’s supporters patronize its work because it consistently proves that this “otherworldly” music is also staggeringly beautiful. That reverence for the music and the group’s unpretentiousness quickly envelopes newcomers too.
After intermission, the German carols took over, most notably with the wondrously complex “In Dulci Jubilo,” which united several different versions in a single tune. Beginning with a canon of little imitating verses that swirled amongst each other, the piece then shifted to the whole chorus, tying the tune together.
By the time the crowd was sent off with a plea for God to “send us a merry new yeare,” everyone seemed grateful to have this pleasant interruption from a hectic season.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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December 8, 2010
Review: Conspirare's 'Christmas at the Carillon'
Framed between two Christmas trees, Craig Hella Johnson and Conspirare brought their diverse sensibilities to their holiday concert on the Long Center’s main stage.
For all the decking of the hall — including colorful shawls for the women and a flock of poinsettias — the program was not festive in the strictly traditional sense. Integrating modern pop music with standards and traditionals, this year Conspirare’s choices trended toward the bittersweet.
Joining the chorus on stage were Patrice Pike, the Austin singer/songwriter, and percussionist Thomas Burritt. Pike, in a red pea coat, was the evening’s standout. She has instinctive stage presence and voice that effortlessly projects emotion.
At times the arrangements felt a little light on counterpoint, but backing up Pike, the choir’s effect was moving. Burritt’s marimba was a soft touch, but had moments that were mesmerizing.
The Christmas season isn’t all reindeer and bows, and this year’s concert made room to consider the melancholy that sometimes arrives with the year’s end. Both lyrically and in a host of quiet, spare arrangements, Conspirare and company were in a reflective mood.
A number of the selections in the collage, like Annie Lennox’s “Why,” and Coldplay’s “The Scientist,” effectively reflected on regret and the end of a relationship. Many delicate tunes featured just a solo or a small group of voices accompanying the piano.
On occasion, then, it was a relief to have the contemplative mood broken with the chorus at its full volume and energy.
The choir was joyous in its “Jubilate Deo,” and shined in more formal works, like “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” and an extended and beautiful “Kyrie.”
The Old Crow Medicine Show’s country tune “Take ‘em Away,” brought a lightness and laughter from the crowd.
The delivery and lyrics (“Every year I just keep getting deeper in debt”) struck a chord, and reminded us that even calamity can be cathartic at Christmas.
Although some tunes felt overly sincere— as when the entire company turned to the audience to sing “True Colors” — these were in the minority. Pike’s original songs and her moving take on pop tunes helped steer mostly clear of treacle.
Even away from the church acoustics, the crowd was rewarded with powerful singing and a breathless, moving reverence for secular and spiritual songs.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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December 3, 2010
UT Symphony Orchestra review
The University of Texas Symphony Orchestra put two influential teachers on stage Wednesday night, as it welcomed Carl St. Clair as guest conductor and Brian Lewis on violin.
St. Clair, originally from Hochheim, Texas, is a gracious and energetic UT graduate who later became a direct disciple of Leonard Bernstein. He has led the Pacific Symphony, in California, for the past two decades, and recently left a Berlin opera company known for experimental productions, after artistic differences.
The hometown crowd was receptive. St. Clair took the stage with Lewis, UT Professor of Violin, who greeted Concertmaster Soo-Jin Nam with a friendly elbow bump before tackling Max Bruch’s demanding “Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor.”
Bruch, the program reminded us, was an “acerbic” composer whose principal contribution was this stunning piece, his first attempt at a violin concerto.
With a large vibrato, Lewis’ tone sang beautifully through the work, projecting nicely above the orchestra. The left-handed contortions that Bruch called for were entirely under Lewis’ control, with high trills and, on occasion, violent, crunchy chords.
Lewis’ onstage movements are slightly squared, as if he’s playing in an invisible box, but it gave a sense of efficiency, not constraint. Indeed, the renowned educator sang through the work’s complexities.
The Sergei Prokofiev “Symphony No. 5, Op. 100” is a captivating work with a wintry feel. Cold and snow too often come to mind around Russian composers, perhaps, but as haunting and isolated tunes crash against big marching themes, the impression of Moscow’s snow and storms remains.
The brass sounded clear, and the tutti entrance in the first movement was strong and nicely unified. The tempo in the Allegro Marcato was quick enough to keep the frenetic tune engaged.
St. Clair was active on stage, his silvery hair bouncing along with him. Under his direction the orchestra had outstanding energy and a warm sound. The frantic finale especially had a thunderous ending that felt potent.
Afterward, St. Clair was presented with a distinguished alumnus plaque and spoke gratefully of his time at the university. “The last thing I did here was 36 years ago,” he said. Let us hope next visit comes much sooner.
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November 22, 2010
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra and Francisco Ladron de Guevara-Finck
It’s sad that Aaron Copland is probably the best known composer of Mexican orchestral music. “El Salon Mexico,” written in the 1930s, combined folk rhythms with a wickedly catchy melody, but it persists after 80 years.
So, it was a revelation to hear the Austin Symphony Orchestra and conductor Peter Bay tackle the darker and more daring depths of Mexican symphonic work.
Galindo’s “Sones de Mariachi,” is a single movement that whirls through mariachi tunes, with an off-beat so prominent it practically becomes the beat. It’s fun music to watch, because it breaks some instruments out of their shell: take the cellos, who become guitarrons, strumming along without bows.
But none of these folk tunes lack precision. On the contrary, Galindo, who studied under Copland, was equally enamored with difficult and mercurial time signatures. And for Manuel Ponce’s “Violin Concerto,” the complexity increased.
Dressed all in black, with a flowing dress shirt and chin-length hair, soloist Francisco Ladron de Guevara-Finck cast a moody and modest presence. This lifted as soon as his bow touched the strings — he has a sweet tone that’s almost bird-like.
The Ponce concerto seemed a tough sell on the audience though, and that’s understandable. The orchestra and soloist have beautiful melodies, yet they never seem to intersect. The entire work was written at an interval that’s almost grating to the ear.
Luckily, long and gorgeous cadenzas and triumphant endings of movements got the crowd excited.
After intermission, the spirit picked up again with the cinematic “Suite from ‘Redes,’ ” by Silvestre Revueltas, a Mexican composer with an Austin connection: he attended St. Ed’s from 1916-18.
And we ought to claim him as one of our own. The two movements are miniature epics, recalling Hollywood’s golden age and foreshadowing the ghostly scores of westerns to come.
“Redes” was a lot of work for the brass, who did good work setting the mood with shrill themes. Still, it was welcome to return to hummable and danceable themes with Marquez’s “Danzon No. 2.” and “Huapango” by Moncayo.
The percussion was kept busy all night, with precise work on bass drum and timpani, as well as a variety of blocks and shakers.
The concert was perhaps a touch more challenging than expected; less folky, more abrasive. But bravo to the ASO for keeping the crowd on its heels. With an amazing variety of motifs and unusual orchestrations, there were enough moments of brilliance to keep everyone entertained.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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November 19, 2010
Review: The Miro Quartet
The Miro Quartet is always worth watching. On Thursday night at Bates Recital Hall a healthy audience fought the chaos of parking, but were rewarded with the chaos and serenity of Beethoven.
This is Miro’s second concert in a series that will stretch over the next six years as they tackle all of Beethoven’s 18 string quartets.
A concert featuring a single composer can be draining. The tendency is for the listener to take sides, comparing one piece to the other, and there’s rarely an effective musical palate cleanser. This wasn’t quite the case, until the finale of “Op. 130,” which became a little long.
This was a long work by Beethoven, with five movements already. So when he wrote “Grosse Fuge,” a 20 minute work, as its sixth section, his publishers chopped it, and he wrote a shorter end piece.
At the end of a long concert, it seemed they had a point. Length aside, “Grosse Fuge” is an ungainly dance, and though entertaining, it was a harsh blow after “Cavatina,” the delicate fifth movement. Daniel Ching’s violin gorgeously rendered the theme, with sul tasto bowing (near the fingerboard) whose tone was impossibly beautiful and served as the evening’s highlight.
Indeed, set between dark, but sublime chords one one side, and a long rock opera on the other, Ching’s embodiment of serenity was a powerful reminder of Beethoven’s capacity for beauty and discordance. It can be a sort of bitter medicine, but Miro’s selections had effectively pulled us between light and dark all night.
In the opening piece, “Op. 14, No.1,” the fun and bright work often felt danceable, even as the winding violin parts land at a dozen false endings. This must have been high humor back in the day, and the conceit works still.
The “Op. 95” (or “Serioso,”) brought out a mania that recalls Napoleon’s rise to power, which Beethoven viewed as betrayal. It veers from much of his work, balancing bursts of passion with dissonant asides.
And “Serioso” especially brought the Miro’s strengths to light: gentle, pitch-perfect harmonies, enviable tone and brilliant balance, especially from Ching, whose violin seems always to be at the right volume.
Josh Gindele’s cello often felt like the quartet’s nimble fulcrum, which allowed for wonderful interplay between the instruments.
The encore was a graceful version of the Lento Assai from “Op. 135,” leaving an audience satisfied enough to overcome the frustration of any exorbitant parking tickets.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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November 9, 2010
Review: Bill Frisell at One World Theater
Bill Frisell plays guitar like a professor giving a lecture. Backed on Sunday by Eyvind Kang on viola and Rudy Royston on drum kit, Frisell dispersed little truths with each sentence, showcasing a staggering range of knowledge from the stage of One World Theater.
A few sparse, scattered notes fell around the audience at first, echoing in reverb from Kang’s viola, as if the group was gingerly feeling its way into a cold pool. Things quickly heated up with a ten minute jam that cycled through samples of near-every musical touchstone Frisell cares about: southern rock, bluegrass, blues, hip-hop, reggae, Americana, and a paint-peeling rock solo drenching in distortion.
By the time the trio dissolved back into abstraction, we’d heard a survey of what makes Frisell so vital.
This iteration of Frisell’s band, the Beautiful Dreamers, was a small package of compact oddities. Royston’s drums were tight and sharp, but quickly brought raucous hard rock pounding, as required. Even more entertaining were the little adventures of Kang’s viola.
Using octave pedals to compensate for a lack of bass, Kang and Frisell shared a psychic instinct to play tight, creeping themes in unison. Kang also favored small glissandos that brought a vaguely Asian theme, bouncing them off pretty solos.
Kang’s position as de facto bassist worked better than might be expected, with his instinct for intriguing little background beats and drone. But his two-fingered plucking, a cross between a fast bass line and a trill, inspired awe.
Then there’s the masterful right hand of Frisell. His clean guitar sound may be his calling card — with discordant harmonies that have won over his cult of fans — but what you see live is the delicate finger-picking and strumming that happens simultaneously, a thumb to play the bass line or melody and a ring finger to play harmony.
What really strikes you is how effortless it all seems. But, come to think about it, Frisell (and his band) are at ease with something incredibly hard: never-ending experiments in treating Americana with both reverence and a sense of humor.
You needn’t recognize the bars of the Doors’ “Light my Fire,” to enjoy the band’s deconstruction of its chords and melodies, but it’s fun to catch it.
The sheer breadth of his musical ideas is what stays with you. From favorites like the quiet, funky “Winslow Homer,” to his hummable take on “Goin’ out of my Head,” the professor still has much to investigate, and much to teach.
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Review: Austin Chamber Ensemble
It was nice to see Jessica Mathaes, the Austin Symphony’s Concertmaster, get to own the spotlight for the opening show of the Austin Chamber Ensemble’s 30th season.
Playing alongside Colette Valentine, the stunning and unflappable Austin pianist, Mathaes ventured through music of great virtuosity, as well as a difficult new work by Los Angeles composer Paul Reale.
On Friday at Westlake United Methodist Church, with its handsome space of thick wooden beamed ceilings, the pews were only sparsely occupied. This was a shame, because the duo chose works from among the most challenging in violin repertoire.
Giuseppe Tartini’s “Devil’s Trill” is a showpiece the artist wrote to try and replicate a tune the devil played in his dream. It starts with difficult chords and double stops, a swaying lullaby, until exploding with quick, challenging passages, loaded with, well, trills.
Mathaes, in a black A-line dress with bright pink roses, handled the work well. After a tentative start, her chords carried nicely, and her tone sang.
Paul Reale’s “Seven Deadly Sins,” was a more acquired taste. Seven short movements of two or three minutes apiece, Reale’s work tries to give each sin a distinct character, with both light and dark sides.
“Anger” contrasted moments of uneasy calm with pretty bursts, while “Gluttony” used glissandos up and down the violin that resemble swirling wine or food in the belly. The most interesting of these was “Envy,” with pizzicato that had a beautiful but serious air of mocking.
Ultimately, pieces of each section were interesting, but the work as a whole was draining. There was simply too much counterpoint — a glut of independent playing that rarely aligned.
Saint-Saens’ “Sonata No. 1 in D minor,” however, was reason enough to be in attendance. Valentine’s piano shined with little waves that recalled Debussy, and Mathaes’ tuning in the upper register was immaculate.
The Saint-Saens is a moody, beautiful work. With fast, detailed passages that are challenging for its players, and rewarding for its listeners.
The duo returned for an encore of a Henri Vieuxtemps’ variations on “Yankee Doodle,” the teasing, playful, and entirely more demanding, riff on the traditional. Mathaes played dazzling harmonics and a left-handed pizzicato that put the cap on a evening of playing that was engaging and exacting.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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October 25, 2010
Review: Academy of St. Martin's in the Field with Jonathan Biss
It’s common to play Mozart’s music like the work of a child-savant, treating his long runs like whimsical math puzzles. But Friday at UT’s Bass Concert Hall, pianist Jonathan Biss took a different direction, toying with Mozart’s most mature, most un-romantic musical ideas. The results were spectacular.
Most in attendance had probably come to see their CD collection come to life, drawn by the chamber orchestra from London’s Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. So it was perhaps a surprise that pianist Jonathan Biss left a greater impression.
Just 30 years old, Biss appeared sans tuxedo tails, in the understated suit and tie of a jazz man. And he followed with a like-minded approach: humble but urbane, and very astute.
“Jeunehomme” (“Piano Concerto No. 9”) showed an intellectual, stylish Mozart, as Biss toyed with the composer’s musical ideas, and with the piano’s conversation with the orchestra.
Near the end of one cadenza, he played what sounded like a blues bass riff. It happened, and then it was gone, on to explore Mozart’s next thought.
His interpretations were full of little teases and pauses. Compared with most interpretations, Biss’ rising and falling notes felt more sustained and less flighty; more muscular and less whimsical.
It was like we were watching the pianist work in his study late at night, a feeling enhanced by the period positioning of the pianist, with his back to the audience.
Biss seemed slightly awkward, “conducting” from the piano, especially for a group that more or less directs itself.
But St. Martin’s are entertaining and spirited, with lively interpretations and an jovial sense of humor.
If they’re not always very delicate, they certainly make up for it with persuasive dynamics and movement. Besides, it’s fun to watch a violinist conduct from his chair, using raised eyebrows, nods and movements of his head.
At times during “Symphony No. 29,” the bass and cellos were hard to hear, and during the opener, the second violins suffered the same fate.
But the orchestra often does outstanding work, as with its shimmering scales in the finale’s fourth movement.
And the crowd was quite pleased, goading St. Martin’s into a brief encore, though a brief word from St. Martin’s would not have gone astray, considering it was the opening night of this small tour.
An all-Mozart concert is not usually the most enthralling program. Too many interpreters make everything Mozart ever composed resemble a frolic through the fields. But Biss’ playing may well do for Mozart what Glenn Gould did for Bach, and watching that was a thrill.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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October 18, 2010
Review: Aeolus Quartet
Aeolus Quartet is a powerful and thoughtful group of young musicians who, halfway through their time as UT Butler School of Music’s graduate quartet-in-residence, are charting an ascending course.
On Sunday night at Bates Recital Hall they played a concert of Beethoven’s first published string quartet, William Bolcom’s modern “Three Rags for String Quartet” and Felix Mendelssohn’s “String Quartet No.2 in A Minor.”
Beethoven’s “String Quartet in F Major, Op. 18” begins with a long allegro, in which Aeolus sounded very at ease, confident in their interpretation. They created weighted pauses — sustained silence, that made for some dramatic space between the music.
The second movement, which is inspired by the death scene from “Romeo and Juliet,” brought out a lovely cello tone and unified, manic dynamics that moved quickly from warm and calm, to furious bursts.
Aeolus are developing and expanding their style, and in the same movement a pause extended perhaps a touch too long, stretching drama into melodrama.
Bolcom’s three rags are super entertaining works that dance with Americana, classical and modern touches. Aeolus have a nice bead on how to play this music. ‘Graceful Ghost,’ an elegy for Bolcom’s father, is especially tender and nostalgic. This piece should be better known and the quartet embodied it beautifully.
The Mendelssohn gave Aeolus another chance to display a unity of technique and purpose, the violins and viola executing precise, exposed notes flawlessly. The work offers a few moments of whimsy that bring out the quartet’s evident sense of humor. After ending the first movement with a slightly uneven tone, they polished the work with sublime harmony, again showing a delicate, emotive touch.
Aeolus’ players are working towards graduate degrees or diplomas while studying with the Miro Quartet. In the meantime, this vibrant group shows great promise.
Before these musicians continue on their travels around the United States and the world, Austinites would do well to catch them at any of their — almost weekly — appearances. This performance was free and open to the public and attended mostly by music students.
To make local connection even easier, Aeolus have a nicely-curated blog and Facebook page that give a very human (and often funny) insight into their demanding performance and rehearsal schedule. One can read them cleverly respond to online spam or see a picture of their evening at Itzhak Perlmans’ home, where “Mr. P” took them on a voyage through the classical offerings of YouTube.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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October 11, 2010
Review: Austin Symphony Orchestra and Judith Ingolfsson
The Austin Symphony Orchestra’s second concert this season lacked calling-card masterworks but surprised with moving melodies, an offbeat Berlioz symphony and a virtually unheard Schumann violin concerto featuring Iceland’s Judith Ingolfsson, conducted by Peter Bay.
On Friday night at the Long Center, two harps opened “Vysehrad,” the lyrical first movement from Bedrich Smetana’s anthem to his homeland, “Ma Vlast.” The strings showed beautiful balance, especially as the theme traveled back and forth.
At one point the violas played a remarkably breathless tremolo, a moment that stood in contrast to trumpet lines that felt exposed, struggling to blend. The cymbals, too sounded a little dry.
Leaving patriotic homages far, far behind, Ingolfsson graced the stage in an elegant gown, whose rose, peach and gold stripes popped against the orchestra’s black. Her violin sang with technical runs, chords and spot-on arpeggios, staying ever so slightly in front of the orchestra.
Schumann’s only violin concerto is one of music’s ugly ducklings. Composed just before the composer’s suicide attempt, it forever held that association and was hidden for nearly a century. The piece holds quite a melancholic spirit, and in the latter movements falls somewhat listless.
Nevertheless, the audience was grateful for hearing it, and stood for Ingolfsson’s playing, which compelled an encore that seemed perhaps a touch hasty.
Ingolfsson’s Bach sarabande was welcome, however. It was equally contemplative, without great flair, but with a raw, haunting quality.
Berlioz’s “Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14” straddled the Classical and Romantic periods, with a wildly bombastic final movement.
With moments almost stereotypically Classical, the long work has a tendency to dull your interest, until a timpani clangs you out of any stupor.
Unlike much of the acoustic music played in Dell Hall, which is often so quiet as to give the impression the orchestra is playing in a separate room, Berlioz’s loudest sections almost rattled you out of your chair.
The familiar third movement was forcefully played, with the trumpets leading the march. The bassoons and oboes offered confident and lyrical lines, including a fine staccato.
Later, a few french horn entries fished for pitch, but this sat as the only issue in the finely played symphony.
The final movement, a truly bizarre sonic romp, uses every section of the orchestra to paint a scene the composer called “Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath.”
Its triumphant horn melodies are broken by jarring percussion, teetering strings, and finally anchored by clanging bells, which were played through the stage’s back entrance, as if to let the dreamer know the real world is far away.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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October 4, 2010
Review: Conspirare's 'Sing Freedom: African American Spirituals
Conspirare may have met its match, at last.
On Friday evening at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church, Austin’s venerated choral ensemble embarked on a what may be its most challenging material to date —a concert of African American spirituals that offered moments of brilliance but ultimately felt stiff and overly academic.
The opening piece “O Black and Unknown Birds” was slightly askance, as the lower voices lacked precise unity in their entries.
These wrinkles soon smoothed out, and the choir found its pacing, launching into “I’ve Been in de Storm so Long” with an innovative and forceful arrangement by Craig Hella Johnson.
The bass voices sang the title words that rocked the work along, countering the three stunning soloists’ sustained harmonies. It added rhythm to a concert that could have used much more.
There were many flashes of brilliance. “Trouble so Hard/I’ve been ‘Buked,” despite a stiff delivery, offered stunning balance, tight harmony and a soaring climax that reverberated through the pews.
Later, composer Robert Kyr, in attendance, had the evening’s most cathartic moment with his powerful, haunting piece “Freedom Song.”
A lone chorister hammered a stick on the floor, with two soloists wailing a repeated mantra, until the beat sped up and wails swept through the entire chorus.
By intermission however, the evening felt poorly structured, with a long first half, and a lack of discernible themes.
And ultimately the context was the primary obstacle. Johnson spoke early in the evening about the importance of the African American spirituals in our collective history.
“These are songs we should all know because they belong to all of us,” he said.
But the truth is, they don’t. These are not “our” songs; they are the songs of the powerless, the enslaved, the stolen.
When choristers sang about freedom it was difficult to imagine what experiences privileged Americans bring to bear on such a distant concept as slavery.
Like a method actor, one can attempt to interpret and express these emotions. Indeed, Conspirare’s moving interpretations were often stunningly beautiful and effective.
But the audience must feel the actors are embodying the characters.
For the folk vernacular of these spirituals, the King’s English enunciation of Austin’s most accomplished choir simply seemed an awkward tool for the job.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
September 27, 2010
Review: Texas Early Music Project's 'Convivencia'
Convivencia is the name of an idealized era in Spanish history when Jews,Christians and Muslims lived peacefully alongside one another, inalternating positions of equality, for centuries. The word in Spanish means “co-existence,” an apt title for an age that prospered because it was tolerant, then floundered when its tolerance ran out.
The Texas Early Music Project framed this period Friday night in a concert titled ‘Convivencia’ at the University Presbyterian Church, playing a stirring concert of Renaissance music from all three cultures, accentuating the most spiritual elements.
Two dozen players in black formed a chorus and an ensemble of beautiful period instruments with elaborate carvings and designs.
There were lullabies, drinking songs and plenty of unrequited love; things each culture held in common. The variety was cleverly planned to evoke moods that rose and fell.
There was dancing and hand clapping in the Sephardic children’s song “Rahelica Baila” that would not be out of place on an Austin playground, contrasting with the more serious “Hal Tusta’adu,” which featured Gitanjali Mathur’s moving solo, backed by bells, drums, and the full chorus.
Harmonies had a richness and depth all evening, and the instrumentalists showed brilliant control, dynamics and sensitivity. Very rarely did a bass note drop out, or a rhythm sound out of place; the ensemble seemed confident and relaxed, which made it a pleasure to watch.
Playing the Santjur (a wooden box resembling a pedal steel guitar that is hit with slim mallets), Kamram Hooshmand gave a virtuostic performance that literally echoed out into the pews.
And Tom Zajac, a guest performer, seemed everywhere at once, playing wooden flutes and recorders, often while beating drums in his left hand.
The evening began with a sung prayer that drew from each of the three holy books, and it finished the same way, bookending a thoughtful and moving evening that showed a great deal of variety and had a transportative effect on a humid Friday evening.
For some, it may take some adjustment to attune the ear to the strange and beautiful half-note tuning in many of the solos. It endows the music with a foreign tinge that gives the willing listener a rush of empathy, especially in a world myopically in fear of mosques, Muslim dress and the music of its call to prayer.
This period of musical, architectural and cultural exchange ended with the expulsion of the Moors and of the Jews who refused to convert. Its inherent inequality may not be a model for the modern age, but it’s impressive that some of the earliest known music has made itself so relevant once again.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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September 19, 2010
Review: 'Happy Birthday Mr. Cage' concert
John Cage’s music can be hard to love, but the master of art-music experimentation has devout followers in Austin.
Thursday night at First Unitarian Church, Line Upon Line percussion ensemble and the Austin Chamber Music Center interpreted some of Cage’s most challenging work for “Happy Birthday Mr. Cage,” ACMC’s annual celebration of the composer.
Percussionist Matt Teodori gave a brief, and helpful, outline of what we could expect: circular breathing into conch shells, burning pine cones, crumpling (and uncrumpling) paper and replacing phonograph needles with unusual materials.
Then the three percussionists centered on stage for “Three2.” They tapped metallic and wooden objects between long silences, adding the sound and light of a lit match struck on beat and extinguished in a water cup from Chipotle.
It was a spare, but intriguing, place to start; the pacing recalled the chiming of bells in meditation.
In the interlude Michelle Schumann played “Suite For Toy Piano,” numbers one through five, accompanied by a reading of Cage’s text piece “Art Is Either A Complaint Or Do Something Else.”
Unfortunately the live reading and toy piano did not make a friendly pair, as they each fought to be heard, and the monotone spoken word became just an annoyance. Not that this was completely undesirable, in context, of course.
“Inlets” called for conch shells of different sizes, to be filled with water and jostled into microphones. The stunning result is a babbling brook, like water lapping to shore.
The natural theme continued when an assistant stepped outside to light the metal box of pine cones on fire. The sound of burning pine cones and leaves, a few pops with a dim hiss, came in, along with a shifting orange glow that rose and fell behind the trio in the glassed courtyard.
This work did expose a problem with sight lines: it was impossible to see the trio as they moved in front of the courtyard, and again, as they sat on the stairs for the “4’33”.” A secondary concern, of course, but still, they deserve to be seen.
The night’s most fulfilling piece was the last, “Credo In Us,” a modern classic. Schumann played a wonderful hand-deadened piano (whose sound uncannily echoes modern syntheisized sounds), as two players galloped perfectly in time across metal cans.
Cullen Faulk, playing the radio, happened upon a gloriously out-of-place country ballad whose singer cried “I won’t let my guard down … I’m not lovin’ anymore.” The audience chuckled, as if to say, this is what Cage is all about.
Just as much fun as the show was the after-show invitation to swarm the stage and pick through the instruments and tools.
Adam Bedell’s scrapyard finds included a shiny steel oil reservoir and what
looked like the plate off a brake rotor. We tapped the steel tin and rotor, and two clangs of metal, both very different, reverberated. This, too, is what Cage is all about. Looking forward to your next birthday, Mr. Cage.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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September 15, 2010
Review: Artisan String Quartet
The public at large is rarely invited to a masterclass, and that’s a shame. Concerts in such small quarters, with a brief demonstration or talk, provide a rich experience for students, and would give any audience more reason to come see a show.
Sunday night in San Marcos, the Artisan String Quartet put on a powerful performance of Mozart and Tchaikovsky on the campus of Texas State University. It wasn’t a masterclass so much as a chance to see top-tier musicians in an intimate recital hall.
They played Mozart and Tchaikovsky, demanding and beautiful pieces of the chamber repertoire, with the technical precision and artistic flourish you would expect from some of Central Texas’ most esteemed classical players.
The Mozart “Quintet in C Major” pulled in Ames Asbell of the Tosca String Quartet to complete the set, adding maximum viola power to the middle register. It was a treat to hear Asbell working alongside Bruce Williams to play Mozart’s winding harmonies. Both are such expressive players that seeing them together is enough to make viola converts of us all.
The quintet is brimming with themes that rise, fall and intersect with a pulsating background, until they’re traded, unexpectedly, with another player. Artisan’s performance was assured, with astonishing communication between the voices.
Despite this musicality, the small room did allow the first violin’s higher pitches to overwhelm passages meant to highlight the violas; even with two instruments the alto voices were unable to compete.
After a brief intermission, the quartet took on Tchaikovsky’s most famous quartet, “String Quartet in D Major, op. 11,” the evening’s highlight.
The work feels like a full symphony that has been boxed inside four players. Its opening chords felt fresh, as they brought out a solemn country melody, and a gentle, thoughtful tone from the quartet.
Douglas Harvey’s cello playing was delicate, yet sustained, working in tune with Williams, whose viola sang passionately and confidently throughout the piece.
And the eerie second movement gave goosebumps as the quartet brought its sensitivity and lyrical form to the melody’s amused melancholy. Tchaikovsky’s winding runs were played with dynamics in full unison, moving beautifully through the piece — even the silences seemed musical.
Despite the small crowd, which consisted strictly of students (including one who talked, seemingly to himself, at increments throughout) the group brought a full professional weight. The room, despite being a few degrees colder than ideal, plays very warmly, and considering the pittance charged for such shows, they’re well worth the drive.
Hopefully Central Texans will take notice of the outstanding work being done both by the Artisan String Quartet, and other performers on the university’s schedule this semester.
The Artisan String Quartet repeats the program Saturday night at 8 p.m. as part of the St. Cecilia Music Series at First Presbyterian Church. stceciliamusicseries.org
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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July 19, 2010
Review: Cavani String Quartet & The Bad Plus
When Dave King, the drummer for the modern jazz trio The Bad Plus, pulled out two E.T. toys, to play beeps and static, it became clear that the Austin Chamber Music Festival is a fearlessly expanding our definition of chamber music.
The Cavani String Quartet and The Bad Plus each played to a Bates Recital Hall near capacity, drawing deserved standing ovations.
The Bad Plus write original works that show a fondness for complex rhythms, discordant harmonies, frenzied energy and surprise. The trio exudes the complete confidence of three musicians at the peak of their powers. It was enthralling to watch.
King, on percussion, flares his arms on, around and (literally) under his drum kit, looking like the Muppet’s’ Swedish chef, playing with an contagious grin that defined the entire set. His repertoire of clanging bells and other musical objects d’art made it difficult to look elsewhere; you can’t be sure what’s coming.
A small complaint was that Reed Anderson’s bass was often drowned out. He’d be striking the strings furiously, but was nearly inaudible.
The encore brought some covers; “Film,” by Aphex twin, and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Both were well received, but, were no better than their originals; the lyrical “Knows The Difference,” or percussion-centered “Thriftstore Jewelry.” If you’ve missed the Bad Plus live, don’t let it happen again.
The Cavani Quartet, formerly artists in residence at UT, began Beethoven’s Opus 18, No. 2 with light and precise playing as the audience held deathly still.
Their entries were uniformly perfect, though the piece relies disproportionately on the first violinist, and Annie Fullard warbled through a few challenging trills; the evening’s only technical issues.
Next, a Szymanowski quartet worked as a palate cleanser: a dense, dissonant work, that used pizzicato like percussion, along with a few wild glissandos that drew giggles from the audience.
The music was cinematic, eerie in minor chords, starting with the snapshot of an idea, only to scrap it and move on. A challenging work, wonderfully played.
The Brahms Quintet in F Minor was, for many, the big draw. Michelle Schuman, the festival’s director, featured on piano, and introduced it, saying “If this is what classical music is, I want to bathe in it every day of my life.”
She was right. Cavani played a wonderful, complex Brahms; lush harmonies that storm dramatically and pull out just about as much sound as possible from five musicians.
The Austin Chamber Music Festival continues through July 31. See www.austinchambermusic.org.
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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July 13, 2010
Review: 'Who is T. Henry Baudecliffe?'
The idea behind “Who is T. Henry Baudecliffe?,” a new improv show at the Hideout Theater, is original, if not instantly appealing. The story is this: In late 2009, Thomas Henry Baudecliffe, a resident of so-called St. Mark’s Community Home in North Austin, passed away, leaving a trove of uniquely strange, whimsical and paranoid marker drawings.
The discovery of a new outsider artist has sparked the imagination of the improvisers who have come together to act out the scenarios that might have led to Baudecliffe’s bizarre drawings. The sketches address a number of themes, either invented or “biographical”: Nazis and robots (occasionally Nazi robots), the dangers of big cities, illness, the idealizing of rural life and predatory eagles.
Things start promisingly, with a Gothic band of buskers playing a dirge on ukulele and percussion. The child-like lyrics (“Why do cars go ‘beep beep beep’?”) are a highlight. From then, we’re led to a series of short documentary interviews of Austinites who’ve been inspired by Baudecliffe’s art.
The story begins in earnest with Curtis Luciani in the role of History Channel-styled narrator-cum-cultural anthropologist, who has the evening’s most challenging job: to guide the audience through a Baudecliffe story, and, more importantly, to set the scene and shape of the entire show.
Going in, it’s nearly impossible to know what to expect. The drawings and some documentary videos can be previewed online —www.whoisthenrybaudecliffe.com— but they offer no clues about how an improv show might form around them. So, to begin each night the narrator has a member of the audience pick one of the Baudecliffe fragments, (ours was caterpillar and a cave full of angels), and the cast and narrator piece together a an improvised tale.
The story that resulted featured the Jones family and their son, Tommy, as he is cast out of his cold rural home for coming into contact with an eskimo girl. He’s forced to flee to industrial Chicago with nothing but a bag of oil on his back, as he meets the evil John D. Rockefeller and discovers the city’s hidden Eskimo labor force. (It made enough sense at the time.)
Roy Janik, as Tommy, was the show’s principal joy, playing the straight man against the absurd scenarios forming around him. His Tommy Jones was a naive child along the lines of Beaver Cleaver, though his best moments come when he nearly pops out of character to question the logic of the story’s absurdities.
Matching Janik’s wit is co-director Kaci Beeler, who provided early laughs as an Eskimo with a peculiar speaking pattern; like a more mystical Yoda, but with long, hilarious delays.
It’s unfortunate that after a strong and funny opening, the plot’s progress lulled as the characters moved to the more dramatic city scene. This section bounced between unfulfilled half-ideas that never quite found a rhythm. In this, what became the main sequence, the improvisers occasionally strained to find the cohesion and communication needed to steer the plot where they wanted it.
It is tough to complain about a show that dares to start with such weirdness, because this is a show with a high degree of difficulty. But with a format that depends so much on the lone narrator, sometimes spontaneous results get cut off, or less fruitful ideas are allowed to play for too long.
The production values are quite high. The soundtrack was brilliantly in step with the action, helping to set the mood, and even — as in the final triumphant sequence — evoking even more emotion.
Much of the movement is outstanding. Whether they’re making up John D. Rockefeller’s sleigh (pulled by polar bears) or forming young Tommy’s vision of human-sized caterpillars, the cast synchronizes beautifully.
Ultimately, the conceit of Baudecliffe and his many fragmentary stories create confusion, instead of opening opportunities for improv. It was surely a fascinating starting point, but they could have chosen almost any person, fictional or otherwise, and landed on a more favorable path.
“Who is T. Henry Baudecliffe?” plays 8 p.m. Saturdays through Aug. 18 at the Hideout Theater through Aug. 28. www.hideouttheatre.com
Luke Quinton is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
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