Concert Review: Soaring Through Lost Altitudes

Leif Ove Andsnes at Carnegie Hall.

Leif Ove Andsnes. Photo © EMI Classics

by Paul Pelkonen

This current season at Carnegie Hall celebrates the Hall's legacy of music making, 120 years presenting concerts at the corner of W. 57th and Seventh Avenue. On Wednesday night, Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes solidified his part in that legacy with an engaging program that spanned familiar composers of literature for his instrument.

The first half of this concert spanned three centuries of keyboard literature, from the classical experimentation of Haydn to the early 20th century works of Bartók and Debussy. Mr. Andsnes chose Haydn's C minor Sonata to start the evening.

Although he is one of the first important composers to write for the piano. Haydn's vast output is often ignored by soloists focused on the  heroics of Beethoven. Here, the soloist showed that the classicism of the 18th century could also express raw emotion. 

It was followed with Bartók's Op. 14 Suite. This is an early example of this composer, with the rhythms of the Hungarian countryside underpinning tonal experimentation and fearless playing from the soloist. The aural palette then shifted to bright, new colors for Debussy's Images, played in a shimmering kaleidoscope of sound.

The ways in which Chopin's piano writing can be interpreted are as diverse as the myriad forms which he invented for the instrument. And at first glance, a long Chopin recital, as offered in the second half of this concert, looks as if the various Waltzes and Ballades were chosen arbitrarily. 

But listening to Mr. Andsnes' cool, cerebral performance, an overall sense of structure emerged. The four Waltzes were played with a steady, pumping left hand and a delicate filigree in the right. Each work solves the problems of the dance rhythm through a different key and musical idea. Mr. Andsnes made each of these works flow naturally into the next.

That sense of structure continued into the second group of works: two Ballades flanking the late Nocturne in B. The Ballade form is a vehicle for heroic expression. Mr. Andsnes drove this work forward in a propulsive, yet engaging style. The more reflective Nocturne formed a slow central movement, the heart of a vast, pastiche sonata.

The concert ended with three encores. It started with a return to Chopin's waltzes, played with the same lyric grace and flow of musical expression as before. Mr. Andsnes then turned south for one of the Spanish Dances by Enrique Granados, which sounded a little like Liszt taking a holiday on the Costa Brava. He concluded with one of his strengths, an Etude-tableaux by Sergei Rachmaninoff. As the notes of this fellow virtuoso sounded in the arched confines of the Hall, one had a sense of this young Nordic artist taking his place among the great artists who call this vast, blonde-wood stage home.

Listen to a live-stream of the recital on WQXR.Org.

Contact the author: E-mail Superconductor editor Paul Pelkonen.

Concert Review: Owning Beethoven

The Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique at Carnegie Hall.

Ludwig van Beethoven.

Thursday night at Carnegie Hall featured the second of two concerts by the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. For the past two decades, this British ensemble has specialized in playing Beethoven, using only instruments from the composer's lifetime.

The concert featured Beethoven's Third (Eroica) and Fourth Symphonies, under the baton of Orchestre founder and period performance specialist Sir John Eliot Gardiner. The show opened with the overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, the opener of the composer's lone ballet score. It was played as a vigorous, spicy amuse-bouche, setting the table for the meal to come.

Although the program placed the Fourth before the intermission, the first symphony played was the Eroica. Its sudden start, with two sharp raps on the timpani caught the audience off-balance. Occasionally the sound was marred by an overtaxed violin or a balky horn, but the musicians' passion and Beethoven's genius overcame these obstacles to enjoyment.

In the first movement, Sir John Eliot delved deeply into the inner workings of Beethoven's innovative score. The famed funeral march carried extra weight when played by the raucous slide trumpets and natural horns. A chipper solo on the principal oboe led off the Scherzo, the rumbustuous dance movement, and another of Beethoven's innovations.

The last-minute switch of the Third and Fourth on the program might have something to do with the Prometheus overture. Beethoven took the principal theme for the finale of the Eroica from the concluding part of that ballet. He developed this simple theme into a bewildering set of variations, including a colossal fugue. The O.R.R. responded to this superb material, lending grace and lift to the variations, bringing the whole piece home with its powerful final chords.

The Fourth is one of the less frequently played Beethoven symphonies. It is usually relegated to the position of curtain-raiser, either to one of its more famous brethren or some grandiose work by another composer. By moving it to the second half of the evening, Sir John Eliot made the symphony stand on its own merits. The slow, dramatic introduction led into a whirling Allegro. This dancing, fast movement had an earthy, organic feel.

The slow movement was played with delicacy. The muscular third movement, a tipsy Scherzo, might be the sound of Austrian rustics, stopping at the local heurige for a few glasses of spring wine, probably getting ready for the third movement of the Pastoral It led directly into the wild celebrations of the finale, played with enthusiasm and power despite an occasional squall from the horns.

The Queen's Throat

Anna Netrebko Cancels Carnegie Hall Recital.

Fabulous, glamorous, cancelled. Anna Netrebko

Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, whose appearances as Anna Bolena have provided a thrilling start to the Metropolitan Opera's 2011 fall season has bowed out of her Carnegie Hall debut. She was scheduled to perform a program of Russian songs by Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, accompanied by pianist Elena Bashikirova.

A press release issued this morning by Carnegie Hall, revealed that Ms. Netrebko has been ordered to go on ten days of rest by her doctor.  No replacement artist is scheduled. Ticket-holders can receive a full refund through CarnegieCharge.

In the statement, Ms. Netrebko said: "I love this program of music from my home country, and no one is more disappointed and frustrated than me that I won't be able to perform for New York audiences next week."

This is the second time Ms. Netrebko has disappointed Carnegie Hall audiences. She nixed a recital in 2006, saying at the time that she did not feel "artistically ready" for the performance.

Ms. Netrebko sang the title role in seven performances of the taxing Donizetti opera this fall, starting with opening night on Sept. 26. She is the first singer to play Anne Boleyn at the Met. Ms. Netrebko also appeared before an international audience in the Met Live in HD broadcast of the opera on Oct. 15.

Angela Meade is scheduled to sing the next three performances of Anna Bolena at the Met this month. Ms. Netrebko returning for a three-opera encore in February.

Anna Bolena is just one role that Ms. Netrebko is singing this year at the Met. On March 29, she goes on the boards as Manon in a new co-production (with the Royal Opera House of Covent Garden) of the Massenet opera. Ms. Netrebko sang in this same production during its run at Covent Garden last year.

Concert Review: She Wore Blue Velvet

Yuja Wang makes her Carnegie Hall debut.

Fingers that can hammer or sing: the astounding Yuja Wang.
Photo by Felix Broede © 2011 Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Music.

Thursday night at Carnegie Hall saw the New York debut of Yuja Wang, the 24 Beijing-born sensation and darling of the Deutsche Grammophon label. Judging from this flawlessly played recital and its long string of encores, the hype surrounding this 24-year-old pianist is (so far) entirely justified.

For her debut, Ms. Wang chose a challenging program: five short pieces by Scriabin, Prokoviev's Sixth Piano Sonata, and the Liszt Sonata in B Minor. Taking the stage in four-inch platform heels and a long, body-hugging gown with a slit down one leg, Ms. Wang sat down at the Steinway, adjusted her shoes to the pedals, and went to work.

The five Scriabin pieces are not well known to listeners. One, the Prelude in B Minor (Op. 13, No. 6) made its Carnegie debut along with Ms. Wang. These are early examples of this composer's work, without the tonal weirdness and "mystic chords." That came later.

She played these works as a suite, alternating slow, diaphanous movements with dark, hard-charging movements that snarled like hell-hounds straining at the leash. Alternating between playing from the wrist and driving from the shoulders, she seemed to pour her personal energy into the three Preludes, the Etude and the Poeme, making them function as a unit.

Prokofiev's Sixth Sonata was next, a piece written in 1940 as World War II raged. Although it was composed and premiered before the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, the first movement opens with a staccato alarm call that jolts the listener and prepares them for the sonic battle to come. 

Prokofiev's industrial-strength writing, with its grim, creaking waltz and apocalyptic finish (with a return of that alarm call) places considerable demands on the pianist. Ms. Wang took a gutsy approach to this rock-ribbed music, meeting the work's challenges head-on and playing with steely resolve.

Ms. Wang returned, (this time in a blue velvet gown) to play Franz Liszt's mammoth one-movement Sonata in B Minor, a composition that turned the very form on its head and showed the way forward to the chromaticism of Wagner. In fact, you can hear themes later borrowed for the Ring in the pages of this thirty-minute work, including the 12-step descending scale that indicated the power of Wotan's spear.

Liszt's Sonata draws its inspiration from Goethe. Ms. Wang dived into the opening theme (a representation of Mephistopheles) and brought the wild energy of Faust's ill-fated adventures out in the early pages. The plunge into the abyss was chilling, ending in grim, matter-of-fact low notes. But that set the stage for redemption and a heavenly ascent, played as a shifting, soothing balm by this brilliant artist. 

With the audience roaring its approval, it was time for encores. Ms. Wang obliged with four. She started with more Liszt: the Hungarian's transcription of Schubert's Gretchen am spinnerade. The centerpiece was her own transcription of Paul Dukas' famous tone poem The Sorcerer's Apprentice. She made the brooms march with astonishing speed, bringing out Dukas' rich tone paintings in this unconventional, but brilliant transcription. She followed with the Melodie from Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice. Friedrich Cziffra's jaw-dropping take on Johann Strauss' Trisch-Trasch Polka, ended the evening with both substance and flash.