Concert Review: The Last Party Hats

The American Symphony Orchestra fétes John Cage.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

John Cage turned 100 this year. We celebrate with this photo of him in a hat.
Image © The Estate of John Cage.

In New York City, the year 2012 will be remembered for natural disasters, pseudo-Mayan hysteria and the cheerful mayhem caused in the city's concert and recital halls by due to the observance of the 100th birthday of John Cage.

On Friday night, Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra acknowledged the centennial of that iconoclastic American composer with The Cage Concert at Carnegie Hall. The performance, which is (as far as we know) the last major concert of the year to feature Cage's music, included the New York premieres of two late works.

Unlike some concerts which rely on this composer's vast output to stand by itself, Dr. Botstein chose to place John Cage in a context of important musical directions of the 20th century. In encyclopedic fashion, the set list covered minimalism, indeterminacy, 12-tone serial organization and a healthy sense of the absurd, before culminating in the performance of three Cage compositions.

The performance opened with the most conventional music of the night: Anton Webern's Symphony. An example of Webern's intricate 12-tone style, this two-movement ten-minute work creates spidery, delicate textures, a brush of bassoon, a short series of notes on the strings, and (most importantly) a breath of empty space between the notes, the rests themselves forming part of the work's integral fabric.

The Superconductor Interview: David Greilsammer

The fiery pianist talks about recitals, Mozart and his new disc Baroque Conversations.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Firebrand: The pianist David Greilsammer. Photo © Sony Classical.

It's not every day that a pianist shakes up the very idea of the piano recital, the 150-year old institution established by Franz Liszt as a means of bringing music for that instrument before the general public. But David Greilsammer, the Israel-born soloist who made his Mostly Mozart debut on Tuesday night, does just that on his new Sony Classical disc Baroque Conversations. 

"I do believe that in the 21st century, a recital program should have a greater purpose," he says in a telephone interview. "Historically, the recital program has come to a end. It is important to visit the great masterpieces in a new way--one that is not necessarily a new interpretation but bringing together music from different worlds. Having them say wha they have to say is magic--there is always conversation and dialogue being created."

The dialogues on Baroque Conversations bring together some unlikely combinations. The arch elegance and perfect structure of Jean-Philippe Rameau rubs shoulders with the burly minimalism of Morton Feldman. Familiar baroque composers like Couperin and Handel flank Whaam!" a bold, jazzy creation by Matan Porat inspired by the pop art of Roy Lichtenstein. Yet the disc maintains a convincing narrative flow, 64 minutes of dialogue that spans the centuries.