Dotted Notes …
Joel Mandelbaum … Carine Gutlerner … John Lampkin … Stan Harrison … Richard Brooks … ACA Festival
from Mark Greenfest:
[The following comments supplement those of Leo Kraft. (See “More Fruit from the Almond Tree” in NMC Vol. 16#1)] After intermission, Joel Mandelbaum presented three miniature selections by a colleague, a friend, and a protégé. Bernard Heiden’s short Fanfare is as good as it gets. Leonard Lehrman’ s Prelude “Bloody Kansas” is atonal and surreal, with unusual percussive sounds and silences. This extraordinary one-minute long miniature has most vivid and poetic musical language that paints a striking and immediate image. The piece is brilliant. The second movement Andantino from John Davison’s First Symphony, conducted by Joel Mandelbaum, is a gorgeous melody – a canonic hymnal tune with ancient roots. It has a rich harmonic orchestration of winds and strings, with exquisite renaissance figures emerging from various brasses. Tonal and traditional, emotionally sincere and comforting, this most articulate piece is a profound delight …
Carine Gutlerner’s piano concert at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall on March 8th featured music by Beethoven, Brahms, Franck and Debussy. There were also two contemporary works on the program, by Mayer and Rochberg. Bill Mayer’s Abandoned Bells (2006) was a world premiere. The layers of sound through left and right hand arpeggios, and rubato coming together and moving apart, is intriguing and scintillating. (I had wished that some of the dynamics were softer, to feel the contrasting textures better.) The second of George Rochberg’s Four Short Sonatas, molto rubato (1984), opened her program. Rochberg changed his style over time, and became gentler and more lyrical, with subtle contrasts of dynamics as well as full expressive range. It sounded impressive – both the piece and the performance – yet I had wished she had been more patient and brought out the softer dynamics. Ms. Gutlerner also played Bela Bartók’s now classic Sonata (1926). I had hoped that performance would portray the full expressive range, not just the striking fortissimo gestures, but also the softer dynamics. The hammering was there, but not the lilting, gentler lyricism.
from BLC
In our Fall/Winter issue we will cover subjects that could not make inclusion in the Summer/Spring issue or in other recent editions. Now listed in our Recent Releases column under Recordings is the mention of a very fine trio, the Palisades Virtuosi, which has performed some of the out-and-out fun music of last issue’s spotlighted composer John Lampkin …
Another composer we have been following and who has earned attention for his unusual crossover style is composer-saxophonist Stan Harrison, at www.stanharrison.com …
Also uncovered here but expected to be fully reviewed is a new opera by our last New Music Champion, Richard Brooks. Robert and Hal is being considered a “breakthrough” work along the lines of the film Brokeback Mountain, on which subject, by the way, the New York City Opera has commissioned Charles Wuorinen to compose an opera …
The ACA Festival of June 4-7 has been covered, and brief comments will soon appear on our website: www.newmusicon.org. A complete report will be published in the Fall/Winter issue of NMC.
