Greg Stepanich

Hindemith Prize goes to triple threat Auerbach

The Hindemith Prize, which carries with it a cash prize of 20,000 euros (as of Friday, when the prize was awarded, that was worth about $24,881) has gone to the young Russian-American composer Lera Auerbach.

She's an impressive talent by any reckoning. Judging by what I heard on the site, she's a fine pianist, and her music trods an interesting path between full Romanticism and the asperities of 20th-century modernism. So you hear textures (in the piano concerto called Wind of Oblivion) and the Piano Trio that summon the ghosts of Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, and then she reminds you we've moved on from there with some blunter harmonies.

What I don't hear here are harmonies in which the dissonances pile up simply for the sake of piling up; it seems to me that she chooses her chords carefully, and that her overall language is much milder than that of other contemporary composers, which should make her music more popular. If she were able to match that kind of writing with a stronger melodic profile, she might shoot into much wider recognition.

She's also a writer, as her bio says:

Her literary works include five volumes of poetry and prose, two novels, and numerous contributions to Russian-language literary newspapers and magazines.

All told, very impressive for someone who's just 31 years old.

It's quite humbling and inspiring at the same time to read about, and then hear, the work of someone as gifted and disciplined as Auerbach is. What she still needs is more performances. I can't recall seeing any of Auerbach's music on any of next season's programs that I know about.

This is the problem in general with so much new music. Someone like Auerbach has recordings a plenty and lots of exposure, but what music of any kind needs to survive is live performances, and frequent ones at that. I'm going to get my hands on some more of her music and get a better sense of what this young writer is all about.

In other news: Jeffrey Zeigler, who appeared in Boca earlier this year performing works by Paul Moravec and Paola Prestini, has been named cellist of the Kronos Quartet, the new-music string quartet that has done much over the last couple decades to bring challenging, out-of-the way music to records and concerts.

My review of Zeigler's concert is elsewhere on this blog (March 26). I enjoyed talking to him after the recital; he was generous with his time and happy to discuss the music he had played. He's a fine, dedicated player, and I congratulate him on this new gig, which is one of the more prestigious in the field of contemporary American classical music.

The Kronos has a huge schedule of concerts ahead of it through May, but I don't see a concert near here on the list, sorry to say.