Gathering Note

In the space of less than a week two soloists have had to bow out of Benaroya Hall concerts.  For the Seattle Symphony, it was Louis Lortie.  On Monday, however, Janine Jansen was unable to perform with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra who had come to town for one performance.  Jansen was set to play Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major – a piece she recently recorded – for the second half of the concert program.  

Taking her place, fortunately, was an equally talented replacement – Henning Kraggerud.  Kraggerud is one of number of music talents coming out of Norway these days.  Norway and its neighbors are turning out conductors, composers, and instrumentalists. And who can ignore the Oslo and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestras, two of the world’s finest orchestras.  Kraggerud is no slouch.  He has played with some of the best orchestras in the world – Budapest Festival Orchestra and St. Louis Symphony for instance – and is well documented on disk with the Naxos label.  As a fill in for the ailing Jansen, he gave a rousing, sharply drawn, expertly played performance of Beethoven’s concerto.

Continue reading Orpheus stops in Seattle for a concert of music inspired by Bach and Beethoven’s Violin Concerto

Thursday night’s concert at Benaroya Hall had a last minute change of program and soloist. Pianist Louis Lortie called in sick last week, and was replaced by Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa, who was last heard here in February on the Symphony’s Distinguished Artists series accompanying violinist Hilary Hahn.

It can be very hard for any presenting organization to replace a soloist at short notice, having to find not only a performer with a week free to come in and rehearse as well as play the concerts, but also with the requisite concerto at his or her fingertips. Often it means a change in program and that is what happened this time. Instead of the Poulenc “Aubade” and Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto, both of which would have been a treat to hear, Lisitsa, who is known for her Rachmaninov, brought that composer’s Piano Concerto No.1, thus ensuring the complete roster of Rachmaninov piano concertos at the symphony this season.

Continue reading Great Ravel from Seattle Symphony

Normally when pianists do well at the International Tchaikovsky Competition, they end up touring the world with the biggest, bombastic concertos in the repertory. The competition has launched the careers of prominent musicians from Barry Douglas to Mikhail Pletnev. After placing at the competition in 1986, Anton Batagov could have followed the same, well-worn career path.

Batagov, however, chose a different course for his career. After winning, he passed the concerto repertory by, and instead committed himself to bringing contemporary American music – John Cage, Steve Reich, Morton Feldman, Philip Glass – to Russian recital halls. Batagov also used the minimalism and chance idioms pioneered by the American composers he admired as the basis for his own compositions.

Batagov’s unconventional career of performing and composing came to an abrupt pause in 1997. In a move that would have delighted Glenn Gould, he stopped performing in public. For almost 20 years Batagov’s work was limited to composing and studio recordings. A call to Elena Dubinets, one of the central figures toiling behind the scenes in Seattle’s classical music scene, changed this. Batagov wanted to play again and he wanted Dubinets to help.

Continue reading Batagov returns to public performance with his Seattle debut at the Good Shepherd Center

A large part of the most beautiful and inspiring choral music ever written in the West is religious. There’s also some poetically banal and musically dreadful stuff in this genre, too.

Fortunately, Choral Arts chose five works from the first category for its concert at St. Mark’s Cathedral Friday night, spanning something over 200 years from Bach to Hugo Distler whose identically titled works, “Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, ”bracketed the performance. In the middle came three composers from the romantic era: contemporaries Bruckner, Brahms and Josef Rheinberger.

Unfortunately, from my seat half way down on the right, the Bach suffered mightily from St. Mark’s spotty acoustics, and perhaps from the lack of a shell to focus the sound. Why didn’t Choral Arts use one?

Continue reading Choral Arts at St. Mark’s Cathedral

Thursday night’s Seattle Symphony concert at Benaroya Hall was a study in contrasts: a refined performance of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and an expansive performance of Mahler’s immense Fifth Symphony. Both were successful, but the truly memorable part was the playing of German violinist Isabelle Faust with her 1704 “Sleeping Beauty” Stradivarius.

The immediate thought when hearing her first notes was how relaxed she was, and how beautiful the pure, gentle sound emanating from her violin. Her bow was so light on the strings it’s as though the sound floated out in an exquisite, silvery stream. Lest this sound sugary sweet, it wasn’t. There was depth and phrasing, shape and contrast here, but always without ostentation. Fast runs seemed easy with plenty of time for each note to be perfect by itself and in its place. There was expressive dynamic range in her playing, but she achieved some extraordinary pianissimos which were nevertheless audible over the orchestra. Faust’s style seemed exactly right for the Mendelssohn. And never have I heard a performance where less was so much more.

Continue reading Superb violinist makes Seattle Symphony debut

Congratulations are in order for Zach Carstensen, freelance writer and TGN man about town, because he received an NEA fellowship to the NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Classical Music and Opera. Is that a long-winded title or what! Anyway, this is a terrific program that promotes journalism in the arts, and ZC is doing a great job. He will be in the Big Apple from October 17 through the 27th.

Carstensen is on the official NEA list here and here.

Highlights of this year’s Institute performance program include:

• Bernard Haitink conducts Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 and Symphony No. 9 at Lincoln
Center’s Avery Fisher Hall.
• Renee Fleming performs in Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera.
• Murray Perahia solo piano recital at Carnegie Hall
• West Side Story on Broadway
• Clarinetist David Krakauer chamber music recital at Alice Tully Hall
• Wu Man, Pipa virtuoso, at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall

Congrats Zach!