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Program V Saturday, June 19, Late Afternoon. 'Piano Plus.' Gregory Hall: 3 Movements From Le Tombeau De Honegger ~~ Burton Beerman: Night Scenes ~~ Elizabeth Austin: An American Triptych ~~ Raoul Pleskow: In Seven Short Movements ~~ George Edwards: Checked Swing. Blair Mcmillan, Piano; Stanley Yerlow, piano; Ana Milosavljevic, violin; Christopher Oldfather, piano. This program was made up of five selections featuring the piano. Only one of the works had another instrument involved, Mr. Pleskow's piece for violin and piano. Like a lot of this composer's work, it is made up of very short component parts, in this case the average length for each “bagatelle” being a little over a minute each for a total of 9 minutes all told. When I once asked him (in reference to a much shorter work) why so short,? he replied, “so that when you get to the end you can still remember the beginning.” Maybe so, but it doesn't mean Pleskow's works are simple or humdrum; in fact, they can be quite diverse and often probing. But he does use unifying devices, in this case intervals and pitches, and the work has a certain dry charm about it. Using Ravel and Couperin as a model, Mr. Hall's Le Tombeau de Honegger, is essentially a neoclassic composition, in which only the pitch style differs from earlier composers, not the generally enjoyable rhythms and tempi. The third movement, “Hornpipe,” is analogous to Couperin's Rigadoun made memorable in Ravel's by now classic composition. It's delicious rhythm is irresistible. Elizabeth Austin was drawn to American folk themes in her triptych. The movements are “Rag Quodlibet,” “Bellagio Blues” and “Hoedown.” Again, the dissonances of contemporary styles are apparent, but the American “bounce” is unmistakable. One does not have to read the program notes to recognize “Turkey in the Straw” as the main theme of Hoedown. The only question we might ask is should the quodlibet be applied to the rhythm of the rag. The middle movement making reference to Scott Joplin works well, but the opening movement seems academic and overly complex, thus missing the simpler elements of the rag, notwithstanding its abundant syncopation. The last item of the concert was a work by George Edwards whose title totally misled us with its baseball pun. But spelling “checked” as “Czeched ” left us wondering where the middle European elements fit in. In fact, can we really call it a piece with “swing.” It does lead us down an intriguing garden path with all sorts of strikingly colored flowers and leaves along the way, and is most definitely helped by the playing of Chris Oldfather, one of our new music performing geniuses. But the piece we found most meaningful and even gripping was Burton Beerman's Night Scenes. Although Mr. Beerman did not leave a program for the scenarios making up the work, he is very clear about their general meaning to him: he calls them “desperate musical pictures,” (perhaps that was a typo and “disparate” was the intended word). He says it was all driven by the death of his father at an early age (for the composer). Night represents death to his mind because of his visits to his cold grave, and perhaps that idea is not unlike the final movement of Chopin's “Funeral March” sonata, with minor piano runs projecting the winds over the grave. Of course, Mr. Beerman is of our times and frightens us with different techniques, like taking apart the ubiquitous cluster and making a genuine art out of it. The pianist was superb. Stanley Yerlow may not be a household name, but his work is valued in the commercial fields where he is known as Regis Philbin's musical director as well as personal piano teacher. Program IV Saturday, June 19, Early Afternoon. 'Young American Composers .' |