By this stage in the winter, many people are starved for more chamber music than they can get from the excellent but not so frequent performances on the UW Chamber Music Series. When Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Winter Festival arrives at Nordstrom Recital Hall, with four recitals and four concerts in four days by superb musicians in a small hall, where every move, every sound, every nuance from every player can be seen and heard close up, it’s like having a long-awaited feast.
Thursday’s Seattle Symphony concert at Benaroya Hall was beautifully designed. First, a world premiere based on Mozart themes, followed by one of the symphonies and one of the horn concertos, and after intermission, the composer’s last work, his Requiem (which was completed after his death and from his notes by Franz Suessmayr). In execution, the program’s first half was satisfying, the second half less so.
Daniel Brewbaker is one of the composers who received a Gund/Simonyi Farewell (to artistic director Gerard Schwarz) Commission, the balance of works being performed at concerts throughout this final season for the conductor. Brewbaker dedicated his “Be Thou the Voice” for soprano and orchestra to Schwarz. Continue reading A Requiem or a celebration?
The Phiharmonia Quartett Berlin needs no introduction to devotees of chamber music, with more than a quarter century of performances behind it and a reputation as one of the best.
Playing at Meany Theater last night on the UW International Chamber Music Series, it gave performances of Shostakovich, Beethoven and Debussy that were arresting, thought provoking and illuminating.
Why? In Steven Lowe’s admirable program notes, he describes the first two works with words of force in several places, such as, “slashing, commanding chords” (Beethoven), “nightmarish, scratchy” (Shostakovich), and his notes seemed perfectly in tune with what we often expect from both these composers. Continue reading A different concept
In less than two years Geoffrey Larson and the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra (SMCO) have gone from a pick up ensemble of sorts, with an ever changing cast of musicians, to a core ensemble of 29 musicians that made its Benaroya Hall debut on January 15th. SMCO is an exceptionally talented group of musicians, that deserved it’s billing at the Nordstrom Recital Hall. The wind section is top notch, the French horns surprisingly good, and the string section — usually one of the weakest sections in a community orchestra like SMCO — better than average. Larson, although still learning the art of conducting, is an adroit leader who has a good understanding of musical shape, detail, and each piece’s greater message. Continue reading SMCO makes Benaroya debut with concert of German Masterworks
Bach, to my mind, is the only Baroque composer whose music always survives with triumph, whether it’s played on period instruments, modern instruments, steel band, sung by the Swingle Singers, or given a rock beat.
Simone Dinnerstein‘s instrument of choice is the modern grand piano, and her program Wednesday night on the UW President’s Piano Series incorporated one of the composer’s English Suites, No. 3, and three transcriptions of different well-known Chorale Preludes by Bach from well-known pianists of their day: Italy’s Ferrucio Busoni, Germany’s Wilhelm Kempff and England’s Dame Myra Hess. Continue reading Simone Dinnerstein impresses at Meany Theater
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein performs this week at the University of Washington.
Zach Carstensen: Bach figures prominently into your repertoire. You recorded the Goldberg Variations with Telarc and have a new recording of Bach keyboard concertos coming out on Sony. Why do you find yourself drawn to Bach?
Simone Dinnerstein: Bach has been my favorite composer since I was a teenager. For me, his music is the perfect synthesis of the cerebral and the spiritual.
ZC: How does your playing of pieces like the Goldberg Variations change from performance to performance?
SD: Over the years, my interpretation has grown freer. I take more time both within the Variations and between the Variations.
ZC: Is there a right way to play Bach?
SD: Definitely not! I think that is the beautiful thing about music – there are no absolutes.
ZC: Even though Bach’s music is a significant part of your repertoire, you’ve also played Webern, Copland and for your upcoming recital in Seattle you are playing Schubert and Schumann in addition to Bach. Do you every worry about being cast narrowly as just a Bach specialist?
SD: Not really, you’re right that I play music by a wide variety of composers. But if I was going to be associated with one composer – I don’t think Bach is a bad choice!
ZC: Your dad is a visual artist. I am wondering if your playing and how you approach music has a visual component? Are there images particular pieces conjure for you? Do you hope the audience “sees” something too?
SD: When I was growing up, my dad (the painter Simon Dinnerstein) used to talk to me a lot about line in drawing, and sometimes when he would listen to me play he would say, “I don’t hear the line.” It made me think about phrasing in a particular way. I often think about light and dark, and texture in my playing. I don’t think of particular images, but I think of techniques used by artists.
ZC: Are there any pianists active today that you admire?
SD: Yes, of course. Some of today’s pianists that I admire include Awadagin Pratt, Natasha Paremski, Orion Weiss, and Gloria Cheng.
Simone Dinnerstein performs as part of the University of Washington’s Presidents’ Piano Series January 12, 2011 at 8 PM.
January 6th this year was Christmas day in the Julian Calendar, and this is the calendar followed by the Eastern Orthodox churches. So it was perfectly appropriate and not at all tardy for Cappella Romana to give a concert of Russian and Ukrainian Christmas music at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Montlake last Saturday night.
The church was nearly full of people, many from Seattle’s Russian community, and many in the intermission spent time looking at the fine mosaics and iconic paintings which adorn it.
The performance was conducted not by Cappella Romana’s music director, Alexander Lingas, but by an equally renowned scholar in Slavic music, this time of the 17th and 18th centuries. Mark Bailey was guest directing for the third time with this group. Continue reading Christmas on the Julian Calendar
This season with the SSO, nearly every week is an adventure in brand new music written especially for this, Gerard Schwarz’s last season as music director. The Gund/Simony commissions are in addition to the new pieces and premieres already scheduled for the season.
This was again the case this past weekend. Two new pieces, one brand new, the other receiving a Seattle debut, were on the program. Bright Sheng’s Shanghai Overture is the second piece in two weeks by the composer performed by the SSO. Sheng’s Prelude to Black Swan — a Gund/Simonyi commission — introduced the annual performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor sings Peter Lieberson’s Neruda Songs with the Seattle Symphony this week. Lieberson’s song cycle — drawn from five poems by Pablo Neruda — were originally written for his wife Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Each of the five songs meditates on love. Hunt-Lieberson only sang the songs a few times in public before cancer took her life. O’Connor has taken up the challenge of Neruda Songs, singing them with thirteen different orchestras and even receiving Peter Lieberson’s approval.
Gathering Note 