Concert Review: The All-Stars Chamber

Marc-André Hamelin joins the Juilliard String Quartet at the 92nd St. Y.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Juilliard String Quartet (right and left) were joined by Marc-André Hamelin (Center) on Friday night at the 92nd St. Y.
Photo interpolation by the author, who should really know better than to try things like this on deadline.

It's an incredible luxury to be able to do whatever the hell you want. On Friday night, pianist Marc-Andre Hámelin joined the Juilliard String Quartet for their appearance at the 92nd St. Y, adding himself to the second half of a concert program of chamber music. The Juilliard Quartet is just as storied (if not more so) than Mr. Hamelin, having existed in one form or another since its foundation by composer-critic Virgil Thomson in 1946.

Concert Review: Not Just Greasy Kids' Stuff

Marc-André Hamelin at the 92nd St. Y.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Pianist Marc-André Hamelin returned to New York on Saturday night.
Photo © 2016 Hyperion Records courtesy Hemsing Associates.

A visit from the pianist Marc-André Hamelin is an occasion for happines among New Yorkers. The Canadian-born, Boston-based virtuoso has recorded a vast array of difficult works by the likes of Liszt, Alkan and Godowsky. More recently, he has recently turned his attention to the more familiar works of Haydn and Mozart. Saturday night's recital at the 92nd St. Y's Kaufman Auditorium was focused almost exclusively on the latter, presenting six Mozart pieces in a brief but satisfying concert.

Concert Review: Good Things in Small Packages

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra opens the 92nd St.Y season.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

The musicians of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Photo © 2016 courtesy the 92nd St. Y.

The chamber orchestra, a mid-sized entity that usually operates without the gesticulation and showmanship of a conductor, is something of a throwback. Performances evoke the 18th century, before Felix Mendelssohn introduced the idea of leading with a baton and when composers, soloists and kapellmeisters in France and Germany led orchestras from the keyboard or with the bow of the first violin. On Saturday night, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra made a visit to New York, playing the opening concert of the 92nd St. Y's subscription season in the opulent and bright acoustic of Kaufmann Concert Hall.

Concert Review: The Leading Edge of Life

The JACK Quartet opens the NY Phil Biennial 2016.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

They'll melt your face: the JACK Quartet.
Photo by Caroline Savage.

Every Biennial begins with a single concert. On Monday night, a crowd of cognoscenti seated in the upstairs auditorium of the 92nd St. Y heard the JACK Quartet open the NY Phil Biennial 2016, the New York Philharmonic's three-week festival celebrating the sharp leading edge of modern art music.

Concert Review: The Virtuoso in Winter

Marc-Andre Hamelin plays the 92nd St. Y.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Marc-André Hamelin. Photo by Sim Canetty Clark for Colbert Artists Management.

The annual appearance of Marc-Andre Hamelin in a solo piano recital is an occasion that few lovers of keyboard mosic would dare miss. Yet Saturday night's thick, wet snowstorm made travel to the 92nd St. Y a difficult endeavor for some. Those in attendance heard the acclaimed virtuoso play a varied program, featuring the music of Debussy, John Field and Liszt alongside one of his own compositions.

Concert Review: A Second Climb, up a Treacherous Peak

Christian Tetzlaff opens the 92nd St. Y season with Bach.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Christian Tetzlaff and friend. Photo by Giorgio Bertazzi from the artist's website.
Bach image added by the author.

A performance of all six solo violin works by Johann Sebastian Bach (the three Sonatas and three Partitas) are the musician's equivalent of a climb up K2 without oxygen or rope. On Tuesday night, German violinist Christian Tetzlaff took on this feat (for the second time in five years) at the Kaufmann Concert Hall, a staid but intimate auditorium that is ideal in acoustic and scale for this kind of performance. This performance also served as season opener for the prestigious Upper East Side venue, a fact celebrated with the distribution of free champagne to the audience at intermission.

Concert Review: The Players' Club

Members of the Philharmonic at the 92nd St. Y.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Yefim Bronfman (left) and Glenn Dicterow (right) wrap up their terms as Artist-in-Residence
and Concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic this season.
Portrait photos © 2014 The New York Philharmonic.

The giant sound of a major symphony orchestra often obscures the excellence of its component players. Last Friday night at the 92nd St. Y, members of the New York Philharmonic joined pianist (and current Philharmonic artist-in-residence) Yefim Bronfman for an evening of chamber music, highlighting the excellent individual voices that comprise New York's oldest orchestra.

Concert Review: The Man of Steel

Marc-André Hamelin at the 92nd Street Y.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Marc-André Hamelin. Photo by Fran Kaufman © 2013 Marc-André Hamelin.com 

There's nothing conventional about Marc-André Hamelin. The Canadian-born pianist is an authentic virtuoso. His recitals combine fierce technical chops with in-depth explorations of the dark corners of the catalogue. For piano cognonscenti, they are nearly sacred events.

On Wednesday night at the 92nd St. Y's Kaufman Auditorium, Mr. Hamelin  started with the G Minor Organ Fantasia and Fugue of Johann Sebastian Bach. Playing a transcription by Theodor Szántó, Mr. Hamelin hammered out the chords, lending a thunderous weight to Bach's musical ideas. The fugue emerged from this turmoil, putting the work's ideas back in order before revealing the cosmic concepts written into Bach's figured bass.

The Sonatina Seconda by Ferruccio Busoni is that composer pushing the envelope with a leaden bump of pianistic complexity. Mr. Hamelin seemed to relish the bleak colors called forth in this music, grim, almost atonal fragments that coalesce into a dark, coherent whole. Playing with muscle and drive, he made the sound of the Steinway like a crack of thunder in the intimate space of Kaufmann Concert Hall.

Concert Review: The Triumph of Formalism

Alexander Melnikov debuts at the 92nd St. Y.

Alexander Melnikov.
Photo © 2010 harmonia mundi USA.

On Thursday night, Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov made his solo recital debut at the 92nd St. Y. The Russian pianist offered an ambitious program of Schubert, Brahms and Shostakovich.

The concert opened with Schubert's Wanderer-Fantasie, the composer's most challenging work for solo piano. Mr. Melnikov played the ringing challenge of the opening with appropriate force, and then launched into the extravagant, complicated arpeggios that so inspired later composers like Liszt.

The slow parts of the Fantasy (which incorporate material from Schubert's song The Wanderer) was played with grace, the piano notes shifting like dappled leaves. The final fast section provided the opportunity for more bravura playing, and this challenging music seemed suited to Mr. Melnikov's head-on approach.

Johannes Brahms wrote the Fantasies for Solo Piano (Op. 116) five years before his death. They consist of seven alternating Capriccio movements (played very fast and with great force) and slower Intermezzos that explore the composer's more tender side. A theme from one of these Intermezzos may have also inspired the Largo in the New World Symphony by Brahms' protége Antonín Dvorak.

Mr. Melnikov gave an even-handed reading of these sturdy pieces, bringing out the dark colors of the composer's writing for the left hand and the lighter, contrasting passages for the Right. This was not the most exciting Brahms performance, but it was steady and well-executed. It might be argued that while these are very fine pieces, the later music of Brahms is not always the most exciting.

The work everyone was eager to hear was on the second part of the program: the first twelve of Dmitri Shostakovich's challenging Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues for Solo Piano. Written to celebrate a Bach competition in 1951, the Shostakovich works are built on the model of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. However, where Bach explores all of the tonalities in order, Shostakovich organizes his Preludes and Fugues in the order of tonal relationships by fifths.

All twenty-four Preludes and Fugues have been recorded by Mr. Melnikov (for harmonia mundi) and are known to be a specialty of this young artist. So it was surprising to see a score brought to the piano, complete with an assistant to turn pages for the pianist when necessary. The pianist took his time working through the preludes, with stops to mop his brow and adjust his piano stool.

Mannerisms aside, these were strong performances of the first half of this marathon album of works. These fugues use a wide variety of styles, from neo-baroque to the composer's own blend of Russian post-Romanticism and sarcastic wit. Most impressive: the delicate Prelude in D, with opening piano figurations that sounded as if they were being played backward. Mr. Melnikov returned for a brief encore, showing his legato and impressionistic skills with Alexander Scriabin’s Poeme No. 1, Op. 32.