{"id":11239,"date":"2013-05-23T02:27:44","date_gmt":"2013-05-23T06:27:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=11239"},"modified":"2013-07-02T23:29:23","modified_gmt":"2013-07-03T03:29:23","slug":"spring-for-ives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=11239","title":{"rendered":"Spring for Ives"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Sedgwick Clark<\/strong><\/p>\n

Too bad that we have only one more season of Carnegie Hall\u2019s Spring for Music series to anticipate. Programs have been stimulating and the artists notable. Tickets cost only $25 a seat! But our economy hasn\u2019t cooperated: The Oregon Symphony under Carlos Kalmar\u2014whose concert in the initial season was my favorite concert of the year, bar none\u2014couldn’t raise the funds to\u00a0return this year, so the already-scheduled\u00a0Leonard Slatkin and the Detroit Symphony stepped in to play an extra concert.<\/p>\n

In the opening concert (5\/6), Music Director Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony enlivened John Adams\u2019s Sibelius-tinged Shaker Loops<\/em> and did their best to make a case for the 1947 version of Prokofiev\u2019s uninspired Fourth Symphony, based on his ballet The Prodigal Son<\/em> and filled with weak-tea melodic echoes of Romeo and Juliet<\/em>. In between, they were joined by the inanely dubbed TIME FOR THREE, string trio in the New York premiere of Jennifer Higdon\u2019s pleasant Concerto 4-3<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Morton Gould\u2019s Symphony No. 3 (1946-47), an all-but-forgotten candidate in the Great American Symphony pantheon, was a highlight of the festival. It hasn\u2019t the stature of the Big Three third symphonies of Roy Harris, William Schuman, and Aaron Copland (and indeed it strongly alludes in its first movement to the Schuman and briefly in its second movement to the Harris), but it is nevertheless a major American symphony and reveals a tough, dramatic side of a composer unjustly dismissed as a symphonettist. The jazzy third movement (\u201cwith sardonic humor\u201d), in particular, with its brash percussion writing, is a standout. Gould was well served in a vibrantly committed performance (5\/7) by the Albany Symphony and its enterprising music director, David Alan Miller, who have recorded the work for Albany Records. The concert opened with John Harbison\u2019s suite from his opera The Great Gatsby<\/em>. Gershwin\u2019s Second Rhapsody<\/em> (1931) followed; it will never rival his Rhapsody in Blue<\/em>, but pianist Kevin Cole and the Albany players got the most from it. Cole tore through a medley of the best of George and Ira for an encore.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s concert (5\/8) featured the Buffalo Philharmonic under its music director, JoAnn Falletta, in Giya Kancheli\u2019s \u201cMorning Prayers\u201d from Life Without Christmas<\/em> and Reinhold Gli\u00e8re\u2019s Symphony No. 3 (Il\u2019ya Muromets<\/em>). In the program booklet Falletta opines that \u201cboth works share a mystical quality,\u201d and her conducting of the Kancheli was eloquent and moving. Il\u2019ya Muromets<\/em> (1911) was accurately rendered but lacked the flair necessary to bring such a long-winded tub-thumper to life. The elder generation used to impose heavy cuts: This well-paced reading lasted just over 70 minutes; Stokowski\u2019s recording was 43. Perhaps the forthcoming Buffalo recording on Naxos will have more fire.<\/p>\n

I missed the first Detroit\/Slatkin concert on 5\/9, but this team\u2019s monumental Friday night concert of all four symphonies by Charles Ives featured fine playing by the orchestra and the best conducting I can recall from Leonard Slatkin. Tempos were ideal throughout. The Yale student’s First Symphony moved along sleekly, with its early-Dvo\u0159\u00e1k and Tchaikovsky resemblances seeming more homage than hodge-podge. The popular Second moved along buoyantly, neatly integrating all of the composer\u2019s witty pastiche of Beethoven, Brahms, Dvo\u0159\u00e1k, and American folk and hymn tunes. Only the trumpets\u2019 initial \u201cReveille\u201d was unaccountably buried before \u201cColumbia, the Gem of the Ocean\u201d roared to its triumphant conclusion, with Slatkin conducting the final chord with a perfect, sharp attack. (That other Ivesian Leonard followed the score in his 1951 world premiere performance with the New York Philharmonic, but he broadened the chord into an unseemly Bronx cheer in his Columbia and Deutsche Grammophon recordings.) The Third Symphony has always struck me as a crashing bore, but Slatkin kept it moving more than most and all to its benefit.<\/p>\n

In a delightful introductory treat to the Fourth Symphony, Slatkin had the orchestra play four bars of the cacophonous Scherzo and then four choirs of the orchestra separately, each playing an instantly recognizable folk tune; then the orchestra played the four bars again together\u2014and nothing was recognizable. I\u00a0could listen to him deconstruct the second and fourth movements like this all night, bar by bar. The orchestra then proceeded to play the piece spectacularly. What a night\u2014surely the height of the festival!<\/p>\n

I was away for the final Spring for Music concert, with Christoph Eschenbach leading Washington\u2019s National Symphony in works by Shchedrin, Schnittke, and Shostakovich, in honor of the orchestra\u2019s past music director, Mstislav Rostropovich.<\/p>\n

Steve Smith, ASCAP Honoree <\/strong><\/p>\n

Steve Smith received an ASCAP Concert Music Award on Friday, May17, at the organization\u2019s annual ceremony, held this year at Merkin Hall. Steve has distinguished himself as a classical-music reviewer at the New York Times<\/em> for nearly seven years and an even longer stint at Time Out New York<\/em>. In particular, his ardent interest and even-handed reviews in a broad range of contemporary music have won him a loyal readership of both musicians and audiences alike.\u00a0 Congrats, Steve.<\/p>\n

Other ASCAP honorees were conductor\/educator Tania Le\u00f3n and Jon Deak, composer, educator, and former long-time double bass player for the New York Philharmonic. There was also a centenary tribute to Morton Gould, ASCAP\u2019s former president and noted American composer and conductor.<\/p>\n

Classical Oops <\/strong><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/em>\u2019s Sunday Review section on May 12 printed an interview with one Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, \u201ca cardiologist and professor at U.C.L.A.\u2019s David Geffen School of Medicine.\u201d Her husband is the chairman of Universal Music Publishing Group, so her home rocks to \u201cmany forms of music all the time.\u201d She continues: \u201cI\u2019ve also recently found on YouTube this historic footage of iconic violinists\u2014Heifetz, Horowitz [sic], Oistrakh\u2014playing with the great symphonies of the past century.\u201d<\/p>\n

It reminded me of a press release I received several years ago from Philips Records announcing the reissue of \u201cSchubert: The Complete Impromptus conducted\u00a0[sic] by Alfred Brendal [sic]. . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rite at 100<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mark your calendars! On Wednesday, May 29, Q2, the contemporary classical online station of New York\u2019s WQXR, will celebrate the centenary of Igor Stravinsky\u2019s The Rite of Spring<\/em> with 24 hours of recordings of the work.<\/p>\n

Audra on Live from Lincoln Center <\/strong><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss Audra McDonald\u2019s brilliant performance on PBS, Friday, May 24, at 9:00 p.m. In the words of the New York Times<\/em>\u2019s Stephen Holden, \u201cAbsolutely thrilling.\u201d I was there, and he was absolutely right.<\/p>\n