(more) Chatter

It was funny to get a New Mexico-related work email about a month ago, actually as I was traveling back from Yellowstone (I was still in Montana). I was so pleased to be asked to play with two prominent string players in the ABQ area within about a month from the contact. 

The repertoire was: two sets of pieces by the Boulanger sisters, and the Dvořák "Dumky" trio. The "Dumky" had been on my "not that excited to play this piece" list for a long time, *but* the invitation was important because it involved not only terrific players, but also a concert series which I really enjoy in Albuquerque. (You can read about that series again in this post).

Part of the tricky, interpretative challenge with "Dumky" are the many tempo changes and transitions. I never realized this before, but my disdain for the work had probably come from a "bad" (read: uninspired, uninformed, unresearched) performance that I had heard at some point. I can't remember if the performance was live or a recording at this point, either. It doesn't matter. What matters is that I agreed to the performance, and once I say "yes," it's "yes" all the way.

Through a number of rehearsals, we worked out who led which transitions, what the audience was to listen for, which places to take (how much) time, and so forth. 

What was fun for me was to remember and imagine many wonderful experiences I've been lucky to have in Eastern Europe. Specifically, in the Czech Republic and Hungary. The experiences of combining parties, pálinka, and too much dancing and enough instruction to be dangerous. Those were, in some ways, "dumka" moments.

The idea of the "Dumka" is that it is a slow lament, which gradually works its way into a more festive, active dance. The "Trio," vaguely following a Sonata Allegro form, more accurately is in six "Dumky" - one leading into the next. 

I am so grateful to new colleagues James and Megan (you can read about them here) for the opportunity to collaborate, and for the transformative experience of making me love this work. 

PHOTO: From the concert. 

Impromptu

No one writes better 

neapolitan chords 

than Franz Schubert, 

and these days, 

between the delicious 

fantasy

in f minor 

for four hands 

on one piano,

or thinking

on lieder 

of

Goethe

and 

Mayrhofer 

(to take place in later summer),

I would rather have 

an

impromptu

meeting

with no one else. 

 

(June 16, 2015)

 

 

What's all the "Chatter" about?

Yesterday was an important “debut” for me in Albuquerque. There is a unique, 50-weeks-per-year series in town, which has a tremendous following and is an institution of the highest creativity (with a little bit of “crunchiness”). 

It’s called “ChatterABQ." You can view the website here.

The organization and events which it sponsored used to be called “Church of Beethoven.” It is a one-hour event, every Sunday morning at 10:30AM. Tickets are sold on-line and also at the door (though a special guest, who I had invited yesterday, said he got the last ticket!). Performers are booked months in advance and the repertoire ranges from Bach Cantatas to Pärt or Schnittke or world-premieres. For the price of a ticket, you are treated to about an hour of music, some poetry, and two minutes of silence. The venue which hosts this, the Kosmos Art Gallery in Albuquerque, is an old warehouse which has been re-purposed as a performance venue and artists’ loft. 

The ticket also includes some pretty fantastic coffee and biscotti-pastries-croissants, of your choice. You just have to get there early to get your “free” coffee and get a good seat!

Joel Becktell, cellist and baroque cellist, had invited me to participate in a concert with him back in August, when I came to another event at Chatter. After this event, we came up with the program in the parking lot of the gallery. The past weeks have been spent working through the Schnittke First Sonata (1978) and the Bach Third Gamba Sonata, in g minor. 

I have long loved the process of analyzing music, either for the first time, or examining something again under close lens when it has been “put away” for a while. I most recently performed the g minor Gamba Sonata with Wendy Richman (a long-time friend from Oberlin, Eastman, and who is now on the faculty of University of Alabama). It was wonderful to take out the old Bärenreiter part and re-work it, thinking about different possibilities of cross-phrasing, hemiolas, tendency tones, and evaded cadences. Ah, J.S. Bach, how you continue to make me swoon ...

The Schnittke was another matter, as yesterday was its first performance for me. The piece is a bit of a “bête noire” - as Joel puts it. There are pacing decisions, texture challenges, not to mention the technical demands put upon both players. 

The audience responded in exactly the way I hoped they would. Ears have to get acclimated to the relative quiet sounds of a five-string baroque cello with a harpsichord. They were “with” us in the Bach in that way! I could especially tell during the arioso slow movement. The Schnittke brought about an entirely different reaction, including audible real-time gasps at the shocking climax of the middle movement.

I am so grateful to this institution for what it does in promoting live music, poetry, and a community who relishes both in such an “espresso” way.

PHOTOS: Aziza Murray from ChatterABQ, 2/8/15.

Master class, TCG Nordica

On Monday, Ellen and I had the immense privilege of giving a joint master class at TCG Nordica (I posted about this location last week, after my Welcome Dinner and practice sessions there).  On the docket that day was:

Schumann, Quartet Opus 44 (first and second movements, with a different pianist per movement)

Dvořák, "American" Quartet

Lunch Break 

Chausson, Opus 21 for Solo Violin, Piano, and String Quartet

Mozart, Quartet in C Major, K. 465 ("Dissonance")

I took the pieces with piano, and Ellen took the string-only pieces.  It was wonderful to talk to the groups about things I've thought about for years about this kind of repertoire (and what Dr. Barr and Professor CR in particular have definitely worked on with me during my time at Eastman).  

The Chausson is a less familiar piece (and composer) to me, but the late-19th-century French-but-Wagnerian style is now familiar territory.  And I'm no stranger to Schumann, and his virtuosic piano parts, his intimate qualities, his devotion to an incredibly vocal line, and a quirkiness and fantasy that brings me back, with delight, every time I get to play his music.  

I adored working with the piano students and the string players of the Kunming Orchestra.  The second violinist of the Chausson had said in a later conversation, 

"You weren't here long enough."

I cannot begin to say how true that feels.  And ... I have been invited back for a three-month (!!) residency in Kunming, dates and arrangements to be decided, but, I am excited about it.  I'm forever telling my students and colleagues to "get rehired."    

The picture is a photo of the morning session string players, pianists, and Ellen and I.