by Daniel Hathaway
The last “Sunday Unplugged” concert of ENCORE Chamber Music’s fourth season featured off-the-beaten-track works by Bloch, Dvořák, and Bartók in the sauna-like ambiance of the Tudor House music room at Gilmour Academy on Sunday afternoon, July 7. Fans wafting air over tubs of ice water helped cool the faculty and Young Artist performers, while the audience made good use of the stylish plastic hand fans the management thoughtfully provided. [Read more…]
by David Kulma
The theme of ENCORE Chamber Music’s fourth season is “La Bohème: Art and Freedom,” mixing meanings of Bohemianism. It has brought together the 19th-century artistic movement that sought to break down conventions (think the characters from Puccini’s opera) with composers from Bohemia, of which Dvořák is the most famous. I attended three concerts where the overarching theme was successfully bent to include music from Mozart to living American composers.
by Daniel Hathaway
The final four contestants rolled around for a second hearing on Monday evening, beginning with a clever program devised and played by Cahill Smith, who followed a beautifully shaped reading of Scarlatti’s K. 466 sonata — in which he pointed up important harmonic details — with Sebastian Currier’s 1996 Scarlatti Cadences, a series of dreamy riffs on snippets of the composer’s works. The competition’s ‘first sighting of Chopin’s Winter Wind etude (op. 25/11) was well organized in Smith’s hands but perhaps not as wild as the composer had in mind. The left-hand themes rang out handsomely. In Brahms’s Vier Klavierstücke, op. 11, Smith created stylistically true performances on a Brahmsian scale that would in some cases have benefited from longer melodic lines. One tiny glitch and one more noticeable memory flub were minor blemishes on the surface of a satisfying set. [Read more…]
Our second date with Saturday evening’s quintet of pianists revealed some shortcomings we hadn’t noticed before, and one pianist quite happily presented a completely different personality from our first encounter on Wednesday evening.
Kwan Yi (USA) was all robotic energy three nights ago, plowing breathlessly through Beethoven and Chopin with admirable technique but not pausing to enjoy the sights along his musical journey. On Saturday, he revealed his gentler, more expressive side with a ruminative performance of Bach’s g minor Prelude and Fugue (WTC I) and a fine trek through Dutilleux’s ‘Le jeu des contraires’ in which he demonstrated varieties of touch and an ability to draw a big sound out of the Hamburg Steinway without succumbing to harshness. An impressively clear performance of Chopin (Ballade No. 3 in A-flat and Scherzo No. 3 in c-sharp) also showed that he’s able to be simultaneously dramatic and sensitive. Some of the quirky body language remains, but there was less of it (the Dutilleux ended with Yi frozen in a long pose facing the audience).
Saturday, August 1
1:00 pm – Esther Park (USA): Scarlatti’s Sonatas: K. 531 in E Major, K. 322 in A Major, K. 203 in E Minor, Chopin’s Etude in C Major, Op. 10, No. 1, Brahms’s Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35. 1:40 pm – Evgeny Brakhman (Russia): Kopelman’s “Everything Is Foreseen And Free Will Is Given” 2007, Brahms’s Seven Fantasies, Op. 116. 2:20 pm – Pallavi Mahidhara (USA/India): Beethoven’s Sonata in C Major, Op. 53 (Waldstein), Walker’s Sonata No. 2. 3:15 pm – Zhang Zuo (China): Bach ‘s Partita No. 1 in B flat Major, BWV 825, Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13. 3:55 pm – Martina Filjak (Croatia): Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C sharp Major, WTC II,3, Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Op. 35, Book II, Bartok’s Out of Doors. 4:35 pm – Yunqing Zhou (China): Beethoven’s Sonata in A flat Major, Op. 110, Kapustin’s Eight Concert Etudes, Op. 40, Nos.1,4,6,7,3.
7:00 pm – Anzhelika Fuks (Ukraine): Chopin’s Etude in E Major, Op. 10, No. 3, Chopin’s Etude in B Minor, Op. 25, No. 10, Chopin-Liszt. Six chants polonaise, Op. 74 No. 1, 2, 6,Chopin’s Nocturne in C Minor, Op. 48, No. 1, Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23. 7:40 pm – Gerhard Vielhaber (Germany): Bach’s Partita No. 1 in B flat Major, BWV 825, Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, Op. 12: No. 1-3, 5, Kalabis’s Akzente, Op. 26 (1967): No. 4, 8. 8:20 pm – Michael Brown (USA): Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6. 9:15 – Kwan Yi (USA): Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, WTC I: 2, Dutilleux’s Le jeu des contraires (Trois Préludes, No. 3), Chopin’s Ballade No. 3 in A flat Major, Op. 47 Scherzo No. 3 in C sharp Minor, Op. 39. 9:55 – Kuok-Wai Lio (China): Nan’s Piano Suite “Chopin and the Cat” (2006) No. 1, 3, Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6
Tuesday evening’s quintet of pianists inspired a variety of reactions in a tradition-heavy choice of repertory leavened by two post-1950 pieces and the different sounds of the contest’s two Steinways. The stagehand was busy swapping out no. 1 (a mellow, bass rich New York instrument) with no. 2 (a brighter in the treble — and under some fingers rather steely — instrument made in Hamburg). It was interesting to see which piano each performer chose.
The evening began with Piano. No. 1 and Ukrainian pianist Anzhelika Fuks’ presentation of Sosjko’s Sofija Kijevsjka, an impressionistic soundscape that began with dramatic low notes and progressed to chord clusters and pointillism. (Anybody know anything about this composer and work? Please share!) Fuks’ Bach (the b-flat minor Prelude & Fugue from WTC II) was momentarily derailed in the fugue by the first real memory slip we’ve heard so far. Mozart’s Sonata in E-flat, K. 282 sounded subdued. Fuks, who has an impressive resume, seemed to be having an off night.
Wednesday, July 29
1:00 pm — Esther Park (USA): Schnittke’s Improvisation & Fugue, Beethoven’s Sonata in c, op. 111. 1:35 pm — Evgeny Brakhman (Russia): J.S. Bach’s Prelude & Fugue in f, WTC 1:12, Mozart’s Sonata in C, K. 330 & Chopin’s Etude in C, op. 10, no. 1. 2:10 pm — Pallavi Mahidhara (USA/India): J.S. Bach’s Prelude & Fugue in C, WTC II, 1, Chopin’s Etude in f, op. 10, no. 9 & Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, op. 12. 3:00 pm — Zhang Zuo (China): Haydn’s Sonata in G, Hob. XVI:40, Chopin’s Etude in F, op. 10, no. 8 & Ginastera’s Sonata No. 1, op. 22. 3:35 pm — Martina Filjak (Croatia): Haydn’s Sonata in c, Hob. XVI:20, Berio’s Wasserklavier, Feuerklavier & Luftklavier (Six Encores) & Chopin’s Etude in b, op. 25, no. 10. 4:10 pm — Yunquing Zhou (China): J.S. Bach’s Prelude & Fugue in B, WTC II:23, Chopin’s Etude in C, op. 10, no. 1 & Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini.
7:00 pm — Anzhelika Fuks (Ukraine): Sosjko’s Sofija Kijevsjka, J. S. Bach’s Prelude & Fugue in b-flat, WTC II:22 & Mozart’s Sonata in E-flat, K. 282. 7:35 pm — Gerhard Vielhaber (Germany): Beethoven’s Sonata in D, op. 10, no. 3 & Chopin’s Etude in b, op. 25, no. 10. 8:10 pm — Michael Brown (USA): J.S. Bach’s Prelude & Fugue in C, WTC II:1, Beethoven’s Sonata in F, op. 54, Perle’s Six Celebratory Inventions (excerpts) & Chopin’s Etude in c, op. 10, no. 12 (‘Revolutionary’). 8:55 pm — Kwan Yi (USA): Beethoven’s Sonata in C, op. 2, no. 3 & Chopin’s Etude in a, op. 10, no. 2. 9:30 pm — Kuok-Wai Lio (China): J.S. Bach’s Prelude & Fugue in b, WTC II:24, Haydn’s Sonata in E-flat, Hob. XVI:49 & Chopin’s Etude in F, op. 10, no. 8.