UW Gazette, October 18, 1995 Conducted by Jan Narveson Friday, October 6: NuMus opened its 10th season with a concert by Anthony de Mare, piano, at Maureen Forrester Recital Hall. And it really was all piano, too - no electronic gimmicry whatever. A variety of short pieces opened the program, all of them interesting in one way or another. The first really memorable one, to our ears,was Elliott Carter's 90+, a semi-serious occasion piece but written with Carteresque harmonic and rhythmic originality. But the two show-stealers were Charles Ives's The Celestial Railroad before intermission, and Federic Rzewski's De Profundis after it. We never cease to be impressed at how fresh Ives always sounds; in this case, his 1923 piece was fully as far-out as any of the others, written in the last decade or so. Working in his favorites - Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, a couple of hymn-tunes, etc., he manages to set them in a fantastic way - which also is one of the more demonically impossible pieces we've ever heard, but Anthony DeMare sailed through it with colors flying. Great piece, exciting performance. The Rjewski work is to the words of Oscar Wilde, concerning his jail term. The piece was written for DeMare, and it must be nearly impossible for anyone else to play, for it utilizes his speaking voice to perfection, as well as inter-leaving that with a remarkable piano score; the two together are stunningly effective. DeMare is an amazing artist, and must be doing for contemporary piano literature what the Kronos Quartet has done for the contemporary string quartet. He is sure-fingered and dextrous, and puts his whole soul into his work. The results are remarkable. Definitely someone to keep in mind! October 8: Millennium II, the latest configuration from the considerable set of artists that Scott St. John has collected together under the "millennium" rubric, was a Piano Quartet consisting of Martin Beaver, violin, Scott St. John, viola, Shauna Rolston, cello and Rena Sharon, piano, a veritable "Who's Who?" among today's finest chamber musicians - a claim that made us eager to hear how it all came out. The answer was fully in accord with our best hopes. In Mozart's Piano Quartet K. 493, the pace began somewhat briskly, but with such superb playing it soon seemed right enough, and the slow movement has never sounded so beautiful, a fact considerably due to pianist Rena Sharon, the only member of the group not a veteran of previous Music Room visits; her remarkable touch and subtle phrasing were ideal for this music. The lively Rondo was of surpassing brilliance. The young composer Kelly-Marie Murphy's piece came with a new name, "Four Degrees of Freedom", written for this group. This short piece has a great deal going for it, including not least that it quits when it's through, rather than wearing out its welcome. It also makes terrific technical demands on the players - met with commanding ease by these virtuosi. On the evidence, Ms. Murphy is is one of the young composers to watch out for. A major change of pace was again provided by the next piece, Joaquin Turina's Piano Quartet, which manages the considerable feat of retaining a Spanish character in a fully worked out, and very effective three-movement chamber piece. And Millennium II was entirely at home in it. The Brahms Piano Quartet No. 2 in A, op. 26, is a monster piece, running over forty minutes and amply equipped with tortured Brahmsian cross-rhythms and thick harmonies. But as it goes along, it gets more compelling, and also offered many opportunities for the individual members of this fabulous group to make themselves heard in soloistic passages. The adagio movement was a marvel, with embers glowing warmly in a slow fire, and the two concluding movements full of tricky rhythmic figures that this team managed to make full sense of. And in the surging coda at the very end, after 40 minutes of intense playing, the wild parallel passages in violin and viola were still in absolutely perfect synch and pitch - amazing! Here, in short, was a true Dream Team at work, their youthful energy combined with incredible virtuosity to make a memorable concert that will surely be a contender for Top of Season. After all this, there was also a delightful little encore, their version of the "Mission Impossible" theme in a powerhouse rendition. October 10: Moshe Hammer, violin, and Francine Kay, piano, completed their Beethoven sonata cycle at KWCMS Music Room to rather too small an audience for an event of such importance. They opened with nos. 4 and 5 - Op. 23 in A, and op. 24 in G, the famous "Spring" sonata - between which the contrast is immense; as of course one would expect it to be between the two sonatas of the second half of the concert, nos. 3, Op. 12/3 in Eb, and 10, Op. 96 in G, between which there is a gap of a dozen years or more. Hammer and Kay are a magically matched team, the matching being due in large part to Ms. Kay's amazing controls of dynamics over the subtle range necessary to prevent masking of the little instrument by the big one. With the Steinway's lid full up, she nevertheless was always, at least to our ears, in ideal balance with her partner, and that is no mean achievement. Meanwhile, Mr. Hammer's inimitably sweet yet fully alive sound must be about as perfect for Beethoven as one could readily imagine. Both the sombre winter of No. 4 and the verdant spring of No. 5 received their full due from this team. Beethoven treats the two instruments more equally than any predecessor, and thus themes are often treated in both instruments, which take turns at accompanying the other. One of the joys of such an evening was savouring the distinctive contribution of each as they followed or led each other at these tasks. And as usual, im peccability was the standard. Only in No. 10, at the end of a very long program, was there any sign of tentativeness or flagging - gee, there may even have been a note wrong somewhere in there! Which is to say that the level of tech nical accomplishment was simply staggering; in that respect, one might have been listening to a carefully edited CD for most of the evening. It would be a major addition to the discography to have a recorded cycle from this pair, though, alas, we understand there are no plans for it as yet. In the meanwhile, KWCMS pa trons who heard all three of these recitals will carry delectable memories with them. Moshe Hammer and Francine Kay join the select few of the world's duos who have achieved total and perfect accord, and make matchless music while they're at it. Friday: It was certainly a pleasure to see a full house at the Centre in the Square for the start of the 1995-6 Masterpiece Series of the K-W Symphony; let's hope that's a sight we'll see repeated often in the forthcoming months. Since Raffi Armenian's projected piece, though ready in score, hadn't arrived soon enough to enable the orchestra to work it up in time, there was only the Brahms Variations on a Theme of Haydn in the first half. With several hundred choristers' chairs behind them, the usual acoustic reinforcement was too far away, leaving the orchestra a bit short on body, though the standard of playing was, as usual, high. But we did find Komatsu's interpretation of these magnificent variations rather short on invention and freshness. Of course it was the mighty 9th Symphony of Beethoven that everybody had come to hear, and with a few extra string players and all those good singers and soloists, we looked forward to it. With those hundreds of seats now filled with sound- absorbing bodies, the orchestra had to work very hard to be effective. From our uncustomary seat in row D Center, the violins sounded very well if too few, while the cellos and basses, unfortunately, seemed muffled - too many stagetowers missing from behind them. We don't know how much all this con tributed to a certain dissatisfaction with the performance, which lacked excitement. It was all well organized enough, but somehow lacking in drama. We felt this in different ways in each movement. The tremendous opening movement lacked cumulative impact; the second seemed to repeat itself unconvincingly; the wonderful, singing slow movement didn't quite get to the heart of the matter, despite ravishingly beautiful playing from our strings. In the finale, we were impressed with the opening orchestral passage, which was admirably organized, and even more impressed with Gary Relyea's opening solo. He is one of the ideal basses for this piece, and we were lucky to have him. We liked Christine Walters next-best in this quartet; her soft-textured but amply strong voice floated out above the rest in lovely fashion, and she passed the test imposed by that cruel high note. The tenor, Richard Taylor has plenty of voice and it's OK, but his delivery, especially in the charming German military-band bit was academic and labored; Ms. Flynn, the contralto, didn't focus well but her voice is nice enough. Because of Relyea and Walters, though, the quartet was on the whole very satisfactory. The huge chorus should have been able to raise the roof, and we were disappointed that it didn't - acoustics, likely - for we heard from others, sitting in different locations, that the chorus overwhelmed the orchestra. But that was Saturday, and perhaps they had just not get on it enough Friday and redoubled efforts the next night? But their sound was good, and no problem with all those crazy high notes, etc. All in all, then, the general effect was less than the overwhelming one we hope for from this mighty work - though certainly good enough to make a major impression on the many people in those huge audiences who had likely never heard a live performance of it before. Saturday: Sitarist Irshad Khan was the guest artist of the area's Bengali community, performing at the Kitchener Collegiate Institute Auditorium with Ravi Nayampally, tabla. In addition to being another demonstration of his amazing virtuosity at this exotic (to Western ears) instrument, it also attested to his stamina, for the concert ran to about three hours of extremely intense music-making. It is scarcely possible for us to "review" an artist of this level of over whelming virtuosity. He has stunning, incredible technical facility, zooming up and down the various raga modes at blinding speeds, placing quartet-tones, eighth-tones, and assorted other alterations of pitch with total accuracy, and so on. His several works for this evening showed considerable variety - though when one considers the variety of his treatment of a given tune, it would hardly matter that his basic thematic material differed as well. At any rate, suffice to say that if you have any interest in this kind of music, it must surely be impossible to find a better, more thrilling exponent than this remarkable musician who, luckily for us, has chosen to make his home in Toronto, so that we can expect to see him every now and then. We must not omit, too, to compliment the tabla player, who was plenty expert as well, and whose teamwork with the sitarist was often quite extraordinary. Sunday: Musica Viva is a flute/cello/piano trio which has been around the Toronto area for a good long time, and returned on this occasion to the KWCMS Music Room after an absence of a decade or so. One of the specialties this group is noted for is programming and, true to form, there was scarcely a really familiar piece on their entire program - and every one proved to be a winner, in one way or another. The opening sonata of J-M Damase proved a delightful parody of early dance forms, which also put the players through a fair number of hoops, through which they sailed in very good style indeed. Three short pieces for the separate instruments demonstrated their very considerable abilities, and next came the Three Water Colours of P. Gaubert, exemplifying French impressionism differently enough from Debussy to be interesting. After intermission, a dandy baroque sonata by J-M Leclair, in which Vicki Blechta, flute, proved expert at emulating that 18th century sound and supplying interesting and appropriate ornamentation, provided an ideal change of musical atmosphere, and the finale was Bohuslav Martinu's fine trio, written in America in 1944 and evoking New England countryside and New York City life. In all of this, pianist Cecilia Ignatieff was outstanding, handling passages of often severe difficulty with nary a falter, in excellent stylistic accord, and in ideal balance with her colleagues. Thanks to this expert and agreeable trio, then, for a real joy of a program, played with style, vivacity, and unfailing expertise. Forthcoming: Thursday, October 19 (8:00): Chamber Music by the Faculty of Music's advanced students, at WLU's Recital Hall $8/$4. Saturday: Pianist Janis Weber at the KWCMS Music Room. This remarkable American pianist, who is also the author of three published novels(!), has been raved about for her "Transcendental talent!", manifested in many concerts of knuckle-busting music such as the original versions of Liszt's Transcendental Etudes. Her program: Beethoven's mighty Hammerklavier Sonata, played at Beethoven's own indicated tempo markings - which are usually considered to be unplayable; Mendelssohn, Phantasie, Op. 28; Henselt, 3 Characteristic Concert-Etudes; Busoni, Chamber Fantasy on Bizet's Carmen; Chasins, Paraphrase on Weinberger's Schwanda the Bagpiper; Czerny, Variations Brillants. Sunday, 2:30: The Sunday Serenade program of the KWS puts the spotlight on youth in its guest artist department, with the outstanding young Toronto virtuoso, Catherine Manoukian, violin, and our own Youth Orchestra joining the senior orchestra, with Chosei Komatsu conducting. Strauss's Tales from the Vienna Woods, the MOzart Haffner Symphonoy (No. 35), the Good Friday Spell from Parsifal, and Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave occupy the orchestra, while the violinist has a go at the absurdly difficult Vieuxtemps Concerto No. 5. In some of the orchestral pieces, the Youth Orchestra will be playing in chair-by-chair partnership with the KWS, which ought to be interesting for us and a real treat for the young players involved. Tickets 578-1570. Sunday evening (note : 7:30 p.m.): The K-W Chamber Orchestra, at WLU's Maureen Forrester Recital Hall, will feature pianist Alma Petchersky, the brilliant Argentinian now resident in Toronto after years in London, U.K., in Beethoven's 3rd Concerto. There's also Haydn's Symphony No. 102, Mozart's Serenata Notturna, and a Scherzo by Carl Goldmark. Tickets $12/$8 at the door. Tuesday, October 24: WLU's Music at Noon (12:00, Maureen Forrester Recital Hall) features no less than the Penderecki Quartet. You might want to come a bit early, as people have gradually become aware that we have a world-class ensemble in residence here now. Wednesday, October 25: Magdelena Tominska, classical lute and guitar, at Conrad Grebel College's Noon-Hour concert (Chapel, 12:30).