CONTENTSCONGRATULATIONS
TO . . ., 3 LIVE EVENTS Veddy British Music
(Kraft) <> Going Into 'Understated Drive' (Kroll), 6 DOTTED NOTES from … Kraft, Kroll, Greenfest, Hickey, BLC, 16 SPEAKING OUT! Thoughts on the Pulitzer Prize, 17 AN INTERVIEW WITH … David Holzman, 19 THE PRINTED WORD Berger's Reflections (Kraft), 20 THE SCOREBOARD Sperry's Encores (Drogin), 21 RECORDINGSMini but Not Mousy
(Cleary) <> Bell's Echoes of Bela (Cleary) <> Just a Few Will Do (Cleary),
22 RECENT RELEASES, 24 THE PUZZLE CORNER, 25 COMPOSER INDEX, 27 BULLETIN BOARD, 27
WEB SUPPLEMENTA John Adams biography and an interview LIVE EVENTS Boston
Modern Orchestra Project CD REVIEWS Angel
Shadows: Laurel Ann Maurer |
Variety for Its Own Sake?B.L.C. ‘Spring 03 at Kaufman Center: Opus 21.’ Music by Libby Larsen, David Berkman, Billy Drewes, Sir Roland Hanna, Tom Knific, Derek Bermel, Richard Adams, Harold Meltzer, William Bolcom. Presented by Opus 21, in collaboration with ArtServe Michigan and the support of the Michigan Council for Arts & Culture. Various performers. Merkin Concert Hall. March 1, 2003. Opus 21, conceived and founded by Richard Adams, its Artistic Director, calls both Michigan and New York its homes. Its goal, as stated clearly in the evening’s program book, "is to create a venue for performers, composers and audiences whose musical interests extend beyond a single type of music." In other words, Opus 21 has accepted the currently held position that people want more variety in their music and less of "the traditional single-genre programming concept." So what better time and place to introduce themselves (we must assume) than now to a New York audience? That said – and we accept this manifesto as part of the current wave of programmatic thinking – it’s still the quality of the program that ultimately needs to be judged by the audience, not the presenters. This event started out well, its first seven offerings (of 12) providing a distillation of the 20th century’s history of transforming concert music from a melodically and harmonically based sonic art to one with more emphasis on rhythm, meter, tempo and timbre (a particular history which surely can be traced all the way back to 1913 and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring). One must then go along with the notion that jazz played the major role in this transformation, for just about all of these first seven pieces were jazz-oriented. We came in on Larsen’s Corker (1989) for clarinet and drum set, but caught the Improvisation on Corker (for sax and piano) by Messrs Berkman and Drewes, which followed without delay and seemed a fitting tribute to Ms. Larsen’s unique obsession with the syncopated beat. The late Sir Roland Hanna’s brief Sonnet for violin, bass and piano, (from about 1986), a New York premiere, was typically light in style but with a substantial range of scale and melodic weaving in and out. Bassist Tom Knific had a busy evening with two original works and participation in six of the program items. His Charmed and Belvoir, both New York premieres composed in 2002, are better than average, solid jazz studies running close to five minutes each. Charmed is unusual in that it employs the violin in conjunction with the saxophone to create timbral interest. However, we found the last two selections before the intermission to be the most forceful - Mr. Bermel’s clownish SchiZm (1994) for clarinet and piano in two parts adding up to a full eight minutes, and Mr. Adams’ Beat It! for percussion duo in two strong movements. When Mr. Bermel composes for his own instrument, the clarinet, we have found the results to be utterly delightful; he knows its best characteristics inside out. Mr. Adams’ use of a variety of percussive sounds in a well formed series of building blocks leading to big climaxes, was strong and well nigh intimidating (as performed by Judy Moonert and Gregory Secor). It made us eager to hear more of his work. Sad to say, the second half of the concert lost the momentum that had been so nicely worked up earlier. Mr. Meltzer’s Trapset, a study in extended techniques for the alto flute, is a neat showpiece for a flutist such as Patty Monson; it has been reviewed by us before. At that point, a huge change of direction occurred. Opus 21 chose to program a 20-minute work by the organization’s great moral supporter, William Bolcom. His Third Sonata in four movements, subtitled "Stramba," i.e., "quaint sonata," is in a classical format, thus making it an oddity on this program. After three normally sized movements (the wispy third of which is marked Iracundia; like a shiver – attaca), we hear a lengthy Moderato, risoluto, all’arabesca. This finale confirms Mr. Bolcom’s love affair with the tango, as the violinist, the rich-toned Renata Artman Knific here, can’t seem to let go of a particular arabesque that is repeated with little variation for many measures. The effect is, to say the least, haunting, for we were indeed haunted by the motto for days. But the idea of variety in programming did not hold up, for the final three "summarizing" offerings by Knific, Hanna and Berkman came off as standard jazz fare one might hear at midnight bars played by a better than average group. We don’t deny the competence of the players. We think the Knifics, supported by ArtServe Michigan and the Michigan Arts Council, are deserving of their support. Our estimation is simply that Opus 21 needs to go back to the drawing board and come away with better standards of quality music and quality programming so it can better fulfill its promise. The evening’s players not mentioned above were: pianists Berkman (in the two Hanna selections and Tom Knific’s 2002 quartet Sienna) and Lori Sims (in the Bermel and Bolcom); clarinetist Bradley Wong; sax player Billy Drewes (in Knific’s Charmed and Sienna); and percussionist Jamey Haddad. |