Access Atlanta > Arts > Our Reviews > Archives > 2004 > October > 25
Monday, October 25, 2004
A Harbison Premiere, the classical weekend
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Concert Reviews
— Atlanta Chamber Players, Sunday at Emory University’s Emerson Concert Hall.
— Warsaw Philharmonic, Sunday at the Fox Theatre.
— New Trinity Baroque, Saturday at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church.
The vitality of Atlanta’s local classical music scene is beginning to rival the old culture centers up the East Coast: world premieres, chamber operas, touring orchestras and more — all packed in a busy weekend.
The big event first. On Sunday, the Atlanta Chamber Players gave the debut performance of John Harbison’s “Songs America Loves to Sing,� a set of 10 familiar tunes, reworked and re-imagined for a chamber quintet of flutist Christina Smith, clarinetist Laura Ardan, violinist Christopher Pulgram, cellist Brad Ritchie and pianist (and ACP founder) Paula Peace.
The first number, “Amazing Grace,� features an assertive flute line against serene, slo-motion drips from the piano. Harbison has somehow made it sound like Aaron Copland painted a Japanese landscape in watercolors. It’s a gorgeous culture clash, and odd.
As might be expected when America is the thesis, Copland and Charles Ives are the ghosts of the 25-minute set. Echoes of their music are heard throughout. “Will the Circle Be Unbroken� gets a citified pastiche treatment made archly rural by a hoe-down fiddle. In “Poor Butterfly� the clarinet flutters and swoops in a long solo and is eventually joined by the others, who stumble in with a somewhat louche attitude.
“Ain’t Goin’ to Study War No Mo’ � is at once jittery and proudly in the old Americana camp. It’s music by a crazy carpenter, fragrant with the sharp smell of fresh-cut pine and likely to collapse at any moment.
“Anniversary Song — a.k.a. “Happy Birthday� — made for an unsettling finale. The piano is strummed from the inside, the others toot on harmonicas, the cello flies away on ghostly harmonics. It gave me the feeling of a Schoenberg reduction of a Strauss waltz, where a happy original is given a dark, neurotic veneer. It’s Harbison at his best, drawing the listener in with what appear to be safe, comforting images while tweaking them just enough to raise all sorts of unanswerable questions — a very Ivesian approach.
On to something completely different. On Saturday, New Trinity Baroque, another ambitious local ensemble, presented Pergolesi’s comic opera of 1733, “The Maid Mistress.� It’s the comic tale of an impertinent servant girl who weasels her way into her master’s heart. She thus swaps her maid’s cap for a wedding veil. The opera, which sounds half way between baroque Handel and classical Mozart, was highly influential, inspiring Mozart and Da Ponte’s “Cosi Fan Tutti.�
New Trinity harpsichordist Predrag Gosta led a delightful show, starting with Jason Hardy singing Uberto, the rich old geezer. Hardy is a major discovery. His bass voice is wide and ringing, with an easy delivery and an Italianate “ping� in his tone. I'm not sure how large the voice is, in terms of filling an opera house, but in the reverberant acoustic of St. Bartolomew's Episcopal Church, Hardy was a most powerful presence.
Soprano Julia Matthews, as the maid Serpina, had charm and a bright, agile voice, although she garbled her Italian diction. Kurt-Alexander Zeller played the dumb and dumber valet role, Valpone. Overall, the performance bursted with energy and fun.
As a chaser to these shows, the venerable Warsaw Philharmonic played the Fox Theatre Sunday evening. On the opening half of the program Antoni Wit conducted music by Polish masters of the 19th and 20th centuries. Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 featured Olga Kern, winner of the Van Cliburn Piano Competition of a few years back, as soloist. Her playing was proportionate and beautifully nuanced. It was also, for my tastes, rather chilly and emotionally uninvolved.
The groovy modern art came from Kryzstof Penderecki’s 1961 “Polymorphia.� This is dizzyingly abstract music, of dense buzzing-bee clusters, wide swoops and massed plunks, clicks and shimmers. There is no harmony, melody or rhythm — at least not in any traditional sense. It moves like dark clouds of dissonance across the sky, or seems to twirl like a giant metal sculpture in the bright sun.
With Retro being the fashion du jour, isn’t it time ‘60s avant-garde pieces join retro-Copland and retro-Ives in our wardrobe closet?
Permalink | | Categories: Classical Music
